BULLETIN 
TORREY BOTANICAL CLUB. 
Botanical Gardens.* 
By N. L, Britton. 
ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 
The cultivation of plants within small areas for their healing 
qualities by the monks of the middle ages appears to have been 
the beginning of the modern botanical garden, although these 
mediaeval gardens doubtless took their origin from others of greater 
antiquity. Botanical gardens were thus primarily formed for 
Purely utilitarian purposes, although the aesthetic study of planting 
and of flowers must doubtless have appealed to their owners and 
visitors. Their function as aids in scientific teaching and research, 
the one which at present furnishes the dominating reason for their 
existence, did not develop much, if at all, before the 16th century, 
and prior to the middle of the 17th century a considerable num-— 
ber existed in Europe, in which this function was recognized to a 
greater or less degree, of which those at Bologna, Montpellier, 
_ Leyden, Paris and Upsala were, perhaps, the most noteworthy. 
The ornamental and decorative taste for planting had meanwhile 
been slowly gaining ground, as well as the desire to cultivate rare 
°r unusual species, and during the 18th century attained a high 
degree of development. Many persons of wealth and influence 
fostered this taste and became, through the employment of men 
skilled in botany and horticulture, generous patrons of science. 
* Vice-Presidential address befere Section G, American Association for the Ad- oe 
__ Yancement of Science, Buffalo, N. Y., August 24, 1896. 
