Note 144 — Chapter IV · SPECIES OF AMERICAN GRAPES.

George Bentham was born near Plymouth, England, in 1800. His father was a man of considerable wealth and the son was privately educated. Early in life he showed an inclination toward botany, writing a book on The Plants of the Pyrenees and Lower Languedoc which was published when he was only twenty-six years old. For a time he studied law in which he showed considerable talent and where his original views attracted some attention. Later, however, he gave his attention to botany almost exclusively, joined the London Horticultural Society and the Linnaean Society, and was more or less closely connected with the workers at Kew. In connection with J. D. Hooker he wrote the Genera Plantarum. Others of his well-known works are Flora Australiensis and Handbook of the British Flora. Bentham died in 1884.