BROWN, Boum- (1773-1858). An eminent Scottish botanist. He was born in .Alontrose. December 21, 1773, the son of an Episcopal clergyman, and was educated at Marischal Col lege. Aberdeen. Having studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh. he became, in 1795, en sign and assistant surgeon in a Scottish fencible regiment, with which he went to Ireland. De voting 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 Captain Flinders for the survey of the Australian coasts. On his return, in ISO, 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 Linn:ran Society. To the Transactions of the Edinburgh ‘Vernerian Society and those of the Limucan Society, he contributed memoirs on Asclepiadca- and Proteamr, and published Pro dromus Flora' Your Hollanditr et Insular Ian Diemen, Vol. I. (1510) ; a supplement to this work appeared in 1530. relating to the Profeneece only. Ile also wrote the General Remarks, Geo graphical and Systematical, on the Botany of Terra Australis (1814), attached to the narra tive of Captain Flinders's expedition. His adop
tion of the natural system of Jussieu, the French botanist. led to its general substitution in place of the LinnTan method. Brown's numerous me moirs in transactions of societies, and other con tributions to botanical science, secured the uni versal approval of the title conferred on lihn by Alexander von Humboldt of Botanieorum facile Prinecps. In 1810 Brown 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 es tablishment. In 1811 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society, which in 1839 awarded him the Copley Medal for his Discoveries During a Series of Years on the Subject of Vegetable Impregna tion. Oxford conferred on him the degree of D.C.L. in 1832: the Academy of Sciences of the French Institute elected him a foreign associate; and the King of Prussia decorated him. He was president of the Linn:can Society from 1849 to 1353, and died in London. June 10, 185S. 1lis Miseellancous Botanical Works (ed. Bennett) were published in 2 vols., 1888-6S. See 13Howx