CHAP, iv Taxonomy, 1860-1900 127 



in the direction of a natural system when it is compared 

 with its predecessors, as Schleiden's had done in his time 

 so many years earlier. Not only in its broad outlines 

 but in the grouping of the Natural Orders, it shows an 

 appreciation of possible or probable lines of development, 

 which justify a remodelling of their mode of presentation. 

 In the different phyla put forward, we can recognize 

 certain features which may be accepted freely, although 

 the complete sketch may fail to secure approval. For 

 the successful presentation of even a plausible theory of 

 descent which shall be comprehensive we must be willing 

 to wait. 



A feature of the last thirteen years of the century was 

 the issue of Engler and Prantl's great work, Die naliirlichen 

 Pflanzenfamilien, which began to appear in 1887, and was 

 still in course of publication in 1900. Though not embody- 

 ing the results of such careful research and observation 

 as the Genera Plantarum, it has been of the greatest value 

 to systematists all over the world. 



Taxonomy on the whole excited less attention in France 

 than in England or Germany during the period 1860-1900. 

 At its commencement the systems of A. L. de Jussieu and 

 of Brongniart, dating back to 1843, were the basis of classi- 

 fication there. For the time, research rather on the lines of 

 Payer's Organogenic de la fleur was more popular than 

 the severer work of Taxonomy in the strict sense. In 

 1867 Baillon commenced his well-known Histoire des 

 Plantes, which was a series of notes on the principal genera 

 of various Natural Orders, based on and intended to illus- 

 trate Payer's views. 



More strictly systematic work was attempted by Adrien 

 de Jussieu about the same time, when he proposed certain 

 modifications in Brongniart's scheme. How feeble the 

 effort was, may be judged from the fact that he retained 

 the Gymnosperms as a subdivision of the Dicotyledons. 



