Banks’s Librarian

Abstract

Brown’s appointment as Banks’s librarian meant that he was now in charge of Sir Joseph’s entire library as well as his collections. Brown’s methodical work habits and expertise were indispensable at this critical moment because Banks began to suffer increasingly from a variety of health problems. One of the important works produced by Brown during the decade following Dryander’s death in 1810 was Brown’s memoir inserted as a botanical appendix to Flinders’s A Voyage to Terra Australis, “General Remarks, Geographical and Systematical, on the Botany of Terra Australis” (1814). Brown’s “General Remarks” contained the material he originally intended to publish in a second volume of Prodromus. In the botanical index, Brown included and carefully arranged the plants from the Leguminosae (the pea family whose members contain pods which serve as its fruit), Myrtaceae (dicotyledonous plants from the Myrtle family), and Compositae (including Chrysanthemum, Endive, and Chicory genera). In describing the plants from these groups, Brown considered their geographical distribution as well as their anatomical and physiological adaptations. He also calculated that he had studied approximately 4200 species indigenous to Australia, and further estimated the number of dicotyledons as three times the number of monocotyledons. Brown’s observations on the fructification in mosses critically examined the previous findings of Palisot de Beauvois who regarded the capsule of mosses as containing the organ of both sexes. Brown expanded his examination of the taxonomy and structure of plants with his work on Compositae (the daisy family, a group of widespread flowering plants), a group he described as “strictly natural.” The Linnean Society (1818) published Brown’s paper on Compositae as a monograph as well. Brown went on to describe the fine structure of the flowers of plants in Compositae, and discussed the phenomenon of inflorescence in Compositae, a term he used to refer to how a group or cluster of flowers were arranged on a stem composed of a main branch, or with a complicated arrangement of branches. In 1820, Brown’s life, the fate of science in Great Britain, and British scientific exploration were irrevocably altered: Joseph Banks, the longest-serving President of the Royal Society (over 40 years), passed away. Brown continued his stewardship as librarian of Banks’s collection. He also had the additional responsibility of preserving the magnificent herbarium, library, and drawings in Banks’s London home in Soho Square. The shy and retiring botanist had assumed a preeminent position in British natural history.