Though space will not allow reference to other text-books and to innumerable minor publications--many of which may be found in the Lindley Library in the Royal Horticultural Society's headquarters at Vincent Square--a brief mention must be made of the _Botanical Register_. This periodical was founded in 1815, and so early as 1823 Lindley became a contributor to it; but it was not till 1829 that his name appeared on the title-page. From that time he was sole editor till 1847, when the _Botanical Register_ ceased to appear; unable doubtless to stand against the _Botanical Magazine_ which under the editorship of Hooker had passed from a moribund state into one of remarkable vigour which now, 125 years after its foundation, it still enjoys.
The magnitude of Lindley's work among his favourite group of plants, the Orchidaceae, deserves recognition by the general botanist. Botanical knowledge with respect to the group was in a very rudimentary stage when Lindley took up its study. Robert Brown and Blume were already engaged upon the investigation of orchids, but they relied mainly on herbarium material. Lindley, on the other hand, began with living plants and ended with living plants, though, as his herbarium testifies, he did not neglect dried specimens. A circumstance that favoured Lindley in these studies was the fact that William Cattley, an early patron of Lindley, was one of the most successful of the early cultivators of epiphytic orchids.
The chief of Lindley's published contributions to the knowledge of orchids, apart from scattered figures and descriptions in the _Botanical Register_, the _Gardeners' Chronicle_, Lindley and Paxton's _Flower Garden_, the _Journal of the Linnean Society_, and in other serials and periodicals, are to be found in _The Genera and Species of Orchidaceous Plants_, 1830-1840, in which are described all the species (1980) known of 299 genera; _Sertum Orchidaceum_ (1838); _Folia Orchidacea_, 1852-1855; and _The Vegetable Kingdom_.
It is unfortunate that no attempt has as yet been made to catalogue the species described by Lindley; but with regard to genera an approximate list of those proposed by him may be attempted, and is interesting as giving some idea of the extent and value of Lindley's investigations in the group.