An introduction to the science of botany : chiefly extracted from the works of Linnaeus, to which are added several new tables and notes and a life of the author / by the late James Lee.

  • Lee, James, 1715-1795.
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An introduction to the science of botany : chiefly extracted from the works of Linnaeus, to which are added several new tables and notes and a life of the author / by the late James Lee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    As might be expected from an author, Lee's Garden was always open to the curious; nor was he ever backward in communicating knowledge; whereas Mr. Miller concealed the names of his valuable collection in the Chelsea Gardens; and the papers, which contained his foreign seeds, were in- dustriously thrown into the Thames; and such is the ardour of Botany, although the acquisition was often to be swam for, these were fished for up again, and the names of the new plants, then introduced, Was thus known to Mr. Lee, and others, in away which greatly surprised the author of the Gar- deners Dictionary. Lee might have died rich, but he was notoriously generous; and cared not what expenses he was at for the attainment of rare plants; and when he pos- sessed such as might have procured him a golden harvest, he chose rather to give duplicates away to lovers of Botany, before the selling them to the rich but careless collectors of flowers, rather led to them through ostentation, than from a laudable en- thusiasm in the pursuit of knowledge. He never concealed his methods of propagating plants; and he generally observed, that, for want of insects to further the nuptials of plants, or a proper degree of ventilation, or rather favouring, breezes, or from some defect in the escape of the pollen from the an- thers, that the seeds in stove plants are in general unproductive; and for a series of years artificial impregnation has been performed at Hammersmith,