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South African Philosophical Society This article was downloaded by: [University of Alberta] On: 01 January 2015, At: 00:37 Publisher: Taylor & Francis Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ttrs19 ANNUAL ADDRESS READ BEFORE THE “SOUTH AFRICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,” MacOwan F.L.S., F.R.H.S. Published online: 28 Jun 2010. To cite this article: MacOwan F.L.S., F.R.H.S. (1884) ANNUAL ADDRESS READ BEFORE THE “SOUTH AFRICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,”, Transactions of the South African Philosophical Society, 4:1, xxx-liii, DOI: 10.1080/21560382.1884.9526188 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21560382.1884.9526188 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/ page/terms-and-conditions ANNUAL ADDRESS READ BEFORE THE “ SOUTH AFRICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,” ON WEDNESDAY,JULY 28~11,1886, BY PROFESSORMACOWAN, F.L.S., F.R.R.S., &C. PEaSONALIA OF BOTANICAL COLLECTORS AT THE CAPE. It has been the custom that the President of this Society should, at the close of his term of office, present‘ some siibject with which he is familiar, in such form as to interest the members about to elect his successor. The excellent purpose to which this usage may be turned n eeds no better example than the masterly rbszimG of observations upon ‘<Protective Resemblances in Animals ” to which we listened last year in this place. Looking over the report of Mr. Trimen’s address, I certainly felt considerable misgivings as to the possibility of presenting you with anything so interesting from the domain of the study which habitually occupies my thoughts. Descriptive botany is not without its attractions, but to appreciate them one must, like the neophytes at Eleusis. have endured hardness, have passed through many grades of botanical free-masonry; and at the best one can only expect to be tolerated. not applauded, by others than the initiated few. I have therefore dismissed the idea of presenting you qith au account of this year’s botanical progress in South Africsa. and then passing on to the larger work of the great centres of scientific activity. There is, how- ever, a very modest little mine of research in which I have now and then adventured some labour, namely, the compilation of personalia respecting the worthy men who by their life-long enthusiasm have made Cape Botany what it is at this day. You take up the three bulky volumes of the Flora C(pm,yis,with their curt biographies of four thousand six hundred species, and are informed that fully four volumes, yet unwritten, would be required to complete the tale of plants that crowd this botanically mealthiest of the world’s corners. Unless I am much mistaken, as your eye ran over thi? species from Namaqualand and that from the Translrei, and hosts of others. from out-of-the-way places, whither only the Mounted Police and the process-server find a road, you would inquire : ‘(Who are the men Downloaded by [University of Alberta] at 00:37 01 January 2015 that patirntly accumulated these materials, toiling at a task promising scant fame and scantier pecuniary recompense ? ” That is what I propose to tell you to-night, in so far as I have been able to find the answer for myself, that is, very imperfectly, for comparatively little stands on record, although some of these men lived their hard lives in our very midst not more than thirty years ago. It is one thing to be a botanist, a passed master in the science, at the head of a botanical department in some wealthy university or well endowed museum, whose patrons are princes, and be able to command the consecutive leisure which goes to the authorship of a great descrip- 188ti.l Presideids Acltb*c.s8. SSSl tive flora. It is quite another thing to be a botanical collector, travelling in search of plants through outlandish countries, often in peril uf life, always poor and certain to receive little recognition. Yet the number of these labourers who bear the burden and heat of the day, and bring the erudite describer his materials, is by no means small. Nor will they cease from the face of the earth so long as the love of wild nature and a certain strain of gipsyhood combine to make men unable to endure the monotony of labour which brings no ideas. I have known a good many British examples of these humble worthies, meu like William Gardiner of Dundee, Ibbotson of Stokesley, Richard Buxton of Manchwtei-, and the annals of botany in this Colony shorn meii of the same type,-fortes, most certainly, but unknown outside the botanical world, simply pin emrent rate saero. The Dutch settlement at the Cape of Good Hope could not have existed long without some striking examples of its wonderful flora being sent home in vessels touching on their return voyage from the East Indies. I-Iolland was throughout the 16th, 17th and part of the 18th centuries at the head of the European horticulturo. Matthias L’Obel or Lobelius, once court physician to King James the First, in the preface to his I’lmztniwa scoc Stirpiurn Histo~rb,praises the zeal of the wealthy Dutch burgomasters in bringing plants from the Levant and the Indies, and avers that their gardens contained more choice exotics than all the gardens of Europe beside. There was a fine garden at Leiden (I), founded in 1577, second only in antiquity to that of Pisa and of Padua. The city of Amsterdam woke UF to establish one in friendly rivalry in 1684, and to these two oeiitres the floral riches of the Cape wodd naturally be drawn. Cluyt and Pauw, nhose names are commemorated in the genera C/icytia and I’civin, successively directed the Leiden garden, and to it the celebrated profossor Charles L’Euluse, better known as Clusius, was attracted from Frankfurt as botanical professor. The niust renowned physicians of the day gave puLliu prelectioris upon the new plants wliich from time to time flowercd in the gardens. Aiuong these may be named Bontius and the illustrious Bocrhaave, Johaunes and Caspar Commelin, Vorstius, Hermann and Adrian van Royen. The collection of natural cwiosities of all kinds from the countries visitcd by the Dutch mercantile marine, then at its best, became the fashion of the day. No doubt the acqui- aition of rare and curious objects was, with most, a mere amusement, like the modern cult of hric-&-brae and old china, but it served science Downloaded by [University of Alberta] at 00:37 01 January 2015 well. Albcrtus Seba, of Amsterdam, gathered together hie wonderful museum, OPUS cui nzillum pn,. emfitit, as his volume describing it says upon the title-page. Munting the elder, of Groningen, spent his whole fortune on his garden of exotics, and mas glad ultimately to dispose of it to the Municipality, accepting an appoiiitnlent as its curator. The wealthy Cliffort outshone all private cultivators in his splendid establishment at Hartecamp, near Haarlem, and Linnsous, in his youth, was glad to become Cliffort’s botanist, and to catalogue, clescrihe, and figure the rarer plants of the collection. Even the gambling on the stock escnange took a tinge from the prevailing fashion, and the bubble speculation of the South Sea Company in England, and of the bank schemes of M. Law in Fraiice were repre- sented in Holland by a Tulip-mania. Shares in the .possession of a -~ (1) Sw it skutoli uf iLs liistury by Doerhaavo, iu liis “ Indux alter PlantiLruu,” 4lo. Lug& UiLt., 127, pp. 18-34. sxxii single Seinper Augustus tulip root were quoted at high premiums, rose or fell, just as now do Shebas or Turkey bonds. So were the Hol- landers florists even in their commercial madness. The general impression of the time and its strong bias towards culture of rare and curious plants of other countries is easily gathered from contemporaneous literature. It is not so easy to particularise and find exact record of those who introduced the Cape to Hollaud. The first notice is that of Justus Heurnius a clergyman proceeding to the Dutch East Indies. He, when touching at the Cape, collected a few plants, and sent them to his brother, Otto Heurnius, rho vas a rofessor at Leiden. From a drawing, probably of Heurnius’s owii, fohannes Bodceus iL Stapel, in his commentaries on Theophrastus (’) figured and describd Orbea ccvriegntcc, Haw.
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