He was best known for his work on the flora of the Swiss Alps, cryptogams, and the Polygalaceae or Milkwort plant family, as well as his years in the publishing industry.

[3] It was during this trip that Alfred Bennett learned the German language, a skill that would help him in his future writings on Alpine plant life.

Between 1851 and 1854, he took Alfred and his brother Edward Trusted Bennett (1831–1908) on several walking tours of Wales and the western regions of England, where the boys studied British flora and took extensive notes on their observations.

[5] In 1858, he married Katharine Richardson (1835–1892) and turned to publishing as a career,[6][7] taking over the business at 5, Bishopsgate Without, formerly run by Charles Gilpin and later by William & Frederick G.

Between 1871 and 1873, Bennett wrote a series of papers on fertilisation in plants that brought him to the attention of Charles Darwin, who encouraged his efforts.

[7] During a walking tour of Switzerland in 1875, Bennett's interest in the natural world of the Swiss Alps was also rekindled after finding 200 species of flowering plants he had not seen before in the field.

This led to his translation of J. Seboth's Alpenpflanzen nach der Natur gemalt as Alpine Plants (1879–84) and work on Austrian scientist K.W.

He argued that small random variations could not accumulate in any single direction as the incipient steps of a modification of an organ would be useless to the individual.

[19] In 1871, Bennett endorsed St. George Jackson Mivart criticisms of natural selection and wrote a supportive review of his book On the Genesis of Species.

[20] Bennett died suddenly from a heart attack in Oxford Circus while riding home to Regent's Park atop an omnibus.