' 



LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 19 



one mentally equipped for the exact interpretation of it. is decidedly 

 more satisfactory than the usual herbarium fragment of a plant. 



Yet one word as to correct and incorrect phytography. One 

 who has a new plant in hand, and who knows it thoroughly from 

 root to seed, may use the whole of an octavo page and the half of 

 another in what will be supposed to have been an attempt to 

 picture this type in words. This same plant may be much more 

 distinctly pictured to the mind of the trained and habituated 

 phytographer in one-fourth that space or even less, by using the set 

 terminology of descriptive botany. This was invented for the two- 

 fold purpose of saving space and increasing perspicuity in plant 

 definition. In its most nearly perfected state it is quite modern; 

 and the history of this terminology is a very significant part of 

 botanical history. The discovery of each term was, in its day, a 

 distinctly botanical discovery and an important one ; yet the Spren- 

 gels and Sachses have given rarely a hint of the evolution of ter- 

 minology. To have made out lucidly its history would have been 

 a heavy tax on precious time. Adanson almost alone, it may be 

 said, has not neglected it. It was seen by him that in a well de- 

 vised scheme of botanical history an account of the development of 

 descriptive terminology and the art of describing should find place. 

 Accordingly in these mere outlines for such history he charges 

 certain authors with having described plants poorly; others he 

 remarks upon as having described them fairly, while to here and 

 there he gives the praise of having described them well. 



One must not pursue further the subject of Adanson's topical 

 divisions. Those presented may suffice for what I wished to il- 

 lustrate, namely his appreciation of what ought to enter into the 

 making of a history of botany. Synoptically placed, those few of 

 his topics of which I make mention are : 



1 . History of grouping of genera as classes or families. 



2. History of accepted criteria of affinity. 



3. Progress in discovery of new types. 



4. Development of phytography and its terminology. 



This mere beginning of Adanson's scheme of history will enable 

 me to indicate the contrast that subsists between his and that of 

 Sprengel, whose not unpretentious work in two volumes was given 

 to the public one year after Adanson's death. 1 Out of the four 

 Adansonian topics named above, only one, the third, obtains good 

 treatment at the hands of Sprengel. The first and second are blank 

 with him; while under the fourth one may gather little beyond 



C. Sprengel, Historia Rei Herbariae, Amsterdam, 1808, 2 vols., 8vo. 



