312 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



BOTANIC GARDENS. 



By D. T. MACDOUGAL, 

 assistant pkofessob of botany in the state university of minnesota. 



n. TUBINGEN AND ITS BOTANISTS. 



THE botanic garden connected with the old Wurtemherg Uni- 

 versity at Tubingen is worthy of special notice, because of 

 its history and its importance as a center of research in the biol- 

 ogy of plants at the present time. 



The university with which it is connected was endowed more 

 than four hundred years ago by the reigning house of Wiirtem- 

 berg, and during the entire period of its existence it has enjoyed 

 the exclusive patronage of the grand ducal and later the royal 

 family, as it is the only higher institution of learning within the 

 kingdom. Set as it is among a hardy and virile people, it has 

 been the scene of many notable mental victories over tradition 

 and superstition. It has always held a position in the forefront 

 of human advancement, and its splendid achievements mark 

 epochs in human thought. Here have originated great schools or 

 methods of thought in the different branches of human knowl- 

 edge. Bauer in philosophy and von Mohl in botany have each 

 forwarded research in his respective line in a manner that can 

 not be measured or easily estimated. 



The subject of botany in this institution received its first 

 attention from the side of medical science. With the introduc- 

 tion of the laboratory method of instruction, actual demonstra- 

 tions of plants were used to supplement the lectures. To meet 

 the need of material of living plants the garden was founded in 

 due time, and it has at successive periods represented quite accu- 

 rately the development and extension of botanical science, a de- 

 velopment to which the botanists of Tiibingen have largely con- 

 tributed. The subject of botany here has always been in the 

 hands of workers of the first rank, who each in turn have mate- 

 rially advanced the frontiers of knowledge of the biology of plant 

 life, for a period extending over three and a half centuries. 



The first lectures on plants, dealing with their medical proper- 

 ties, were given at the university by Leonard Fuchs, from 1535 

 until his death in 1566, although it was not until a century later 

 (1662) that the garden was founded. Fuchs occupied a promi- 

 nent position in the history of ancient botany, since he made the 

 first attempt to establish a system of terminology, and further- 

 more he was the first to base descriptions of species upon facts 

 obtained from an actual examination of the plants themselves. 

 In his Historia Stirpium about five hundred species are figured 



