2-982-190 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Late Mr. Robert Brown, Keeper of Botany in the British Museum, from a photograph by Maull and Polyblank, 1858. Engraving from a photograph by Maull and Polyblank. On Sir Joseph [Banks]'s recommendation, and attracted by the more than golden promise which the then unexplored regions of New Holland held out to the botanical inquirer, [in 1801] he...embarked as naturalist in the expedition under Captain Flinders for the survey of the Australian coasts...By the use of the microscope, and the conviction of the necessity of studying the history of the development of the plant in order to ascertain its true structure and relations, Brown changed the face of botany...Brown had...grasped the great ideas of growth and development which are now the beacon lights of all research in biological science...The natural system of Jussieu had hitherto made but little progress...but its adoption by one who was instinctively recognised as the first botanist of the age...speedily compelled an almost universal assent to its principles, and led to its general substitution in place of the Linnean method'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.