CH. ii. THEOPHRASTUS THE FIRST BOTANIST. 17 



work on Natural History, which, however, you must remem- 

 ber, was only one out of many great works written by him on 

 subjects which do not concern us here. 



Theophrastus, 371. Among the pupils of Aristotle was 

 a man named Theophrastus, who was born at Eresus, 371 

 B.C. Theophrastus devoted himself chiefly to the study of 

 plants, and is the first botanist whose name has been handed 

 down to us. The Greeks understood very little about 

 plants except those which they used for medicine ; but Theo- 

 phrastus described about 500 different kinds of plants, and 

 divided them into trees, herbs, and shrubs. We know, how- 

 ever, very little about his writings. 



