BROWN, ROBERT, an eminent botanist, the son of an Episcopal clergyman, was b. at :1Iontrose, Scotland, Dec. 21, 1773, and educated at Marischal college. Aberdeen. Having studied medicine at the university of Edinburgh, he became, in 1795, ensign and assistant-surgeon in a Scottish fencible regiment. with which he went to Ireland. Devoting himself to the study of botany, he resigned his commissions in 1800, and the following year was, on the recommendation of sir Joseph Banks, engaged as naturalist in the expedition sent out under rapt. Flinders for the survey of the Australian coasts. On his return, in 1805, he brought home nearly 4000 species of Australian plants, a large proportion of which were new to science. Soon after, he was appointed librarian to the Linnman society. To the Transactions of the Edinburgh Wernerian society and those of the Linnrean society, he contrihuted memoirs on Asclepiadem and Protcacem, and pub lished Prodromus Flom Norm Ifollandim et Insider Van Diemen's, vol. i. 1810; a supple ment to this work appeared in 1830, relating to the Proteacem only. He also wrote the General Remarks, Geographical and Systematical,. on the Botany of Terra Australis, attached to the narrative of rapt. Flinders' expedition, 1814. His adoption of the
natural system of Jussieu, the French botanist, led to its general substitution in place of the Linntean method. B.'s numerous memoirs in transactions of societies, and other contributions to botanical science, secured for universal approval the title conferred on him by Alexander von Humboldt of Bottanicoruns facile Princeps. In 1810, B. received the charge of the library and splendid collections of sir Joseph Banks, which, in 1827, were transferred to the British museum, when he was appointed keeper of the botanical department in that establishment. In 1811, he was elected F.ILS.; in 1832, D.C.L. of Oxford; and in 1833 was elected one of the 18 foreign associates of the academy of sciences of the institute of France. In 1839, the royal society awarded him their Copley medal for his Discoveries during a Series of Years on the Subject of Vegetable Impregnation. He was president of the Linna3an society from 1849 to 1853. He died in London, June 10, 1838. A collected edition of B.'s works, in 5 vols. 8vo, has been published in Germany.