34 



HARD WICKE ' S S CIE NCE - G O SSI P. 



various works, such as ' ' Plantarum omnium quarum 

 hodie apud pharmacopolas usus est magis frequens 

 nomenclature . . . sententiam," Paris, 1541, being 

 mainly materia medica. Rembert Dodoens was born 

 at Mechlin in 1517, and died at Leyden in 1585. In 

 1554 he published his " Cruydeboeck," which was 

 translated into French by Clusius in 1557, into Eng- 

 lish by Henry Lyte in 1578, and into Latin, as the 

 " Stirpium Historic Pemptades," by the author in 

 1583. "La gloire de Dodoens," says Crepin, "est 

 d'avoir rompu avec le passe, d'avoir, dans son histoire 

 des plantes, etudie la nature par lui-meme. . . . On 

 peut dire, en toute verite, que Dodoens est l'inventeur 

 de la classification des plantes." His classification is, 

 however, hardly worthy of the name. Conrad Gesner, 

 born at Zurich in 15 16, published a work, " De Raris 

 et Admirandis Herbis," in 1555, but his great work, 

 with figures of 1 500 species, was not published when 

 in 1565 he died, and his ideas on classification were 

 carried out by Andreas Caesalpinus, called by Linnaeus 

 "Primus verus systematicus." In his " De Plantis," 

 published at Florence in 1583, he distributes 1520 

 plants into fifteen classes, his primary division being 

 into trees and herbs, and the secondary ones accord- 

 ing to the position of the embryo, and the nature of 

 the fruit and seeds. In 1561 Valerius Cordus pub- 

 lished Gesner's " Historia de Plantis," at Strassburg. 

 Matthias de l'Obel, born at Lille in 1538, died at 

 Highgate in 1616. In 1570, in conjunction with Peter 

 Pena, he published in London his "Stirpium Adver- 

 saria Nova," and in 1576, at Antwerp, his " Observa- 

 tions. " His works were largely followed by John 

 Gerard. (born 1545), who, in 1596 and 1599, published 

 catalogues of the plants growing in his garden, and 

 in 1597 his "Herball." Gerard seems largely indebted 

 to Dodoens, and seems to have little original merit. 

 The " Herball" contains about 2000 plants. In 1601 

 appeared the " Rariorum Plantarum Historia," the 

 chief work of Charles de l'Escluse, commonly known 

 as Clusius (born 1526, died 1609). It was printed at 

 Antwerp, "par le celebre Plantin, le genereux Mecene 

 des botanistes." In 1606 and 1616 was published at 

 Rome the "Ecphrasis " ofColumna, who alone seems 

 to have appreciated the views of Caesalpinus ; for 

 both Caspar Bauhin, in his " Pinax," in 1623, and his 

 elder brother John, in his ' ' Historia Plantarum Uni- 

 versalis," which describes 5000 species, follow Lobel. 

 Pulteney describes the latter work, published in 1650, 

 as "a repository of all that was valuable in the 

 ancients, in his immediate predecessors, and in the 

 discoveries of his own time, relating to the history of 

 vegetables, executed with that accuracy and critical 

 judgment which can only be exhibited by superior 

 talents." In 1623 Thomas Johnson (died 1644) pub- 

 lished his "amended " edition of Gerard's "Herball," 

 which is virtually a new work by an author far more 

 critical than that of the original. A botanist of per- 

 haps still higher calibre was John Parkinson, apo- 

 thecary of London, and the King's herbarist, born 



in 1567, who, in 1629, published a horticultural work, 

 "Paradisi in sole Paradisus Terrestris," and in 1640 

 his " Theatrum Botanicum." The "Phytologia Bota- 

 nica " of Dr. William How, published in 1650, " The 

 First attempt at a Flora in England," and the 

 "Pinax" of Dr. Christopher Merrett, published in 

 1666, are surpassed longo intcrvallo by the " Cata- 

 logus Plantarum Anglire " of John Ray, which 

 appeared in 1670. 



Whilst the Catalogus opened a new period in 

 British botany, a series of great works marked a 

 fresh era in general botanical classification. These 

 were the " Historia Plantarum Universalis " of Robert 

 Morison, published in 1678, Ray's "Methodus Plan- 

 tarum" in 1682, Rivinus's " Introductio Generalis in 

 Rem Herbariam," in 1690, and Toumefort's " Ele- 

 mens de Botanique," in 1694. Robert Morison, a 

 native of Aberdeen, Regius Professor at Oxford, in 

 his history, and in a previous work on the Umbel- 

 lifera;, followed Caesalpinus in looking to the fruit for 

 his main characters ; but so far as influence is con- 

 cerned, Ray is the founder of a natural system of 

 classification in England. He acknowledged his 

 obligations to Jungius of Hamburg. His primary 

 division was into Flowerless and Flowering Plants. 

 The latter he separated into Dicotyledons and Mono- 

 cotyledons, and he recognised the natural groups 

 Fungi, Musci, Filices, Compositae, Umbelliferae, 

 Labiatae, Boraginece, and Cruciferee. In his "His- 

 toria Plantarum," completed in 1704, he describes 

 6000 plants, and in the second edition of the Me- 

 thodus (1703), he classifies about 18,000, then known. 

 His " Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum," 

 published first in 1690, was " the first systematic Flora 

 of Great Britain." Of him A. L. de Jussieu wrote in 

 1 7 19, " Non a floribus tantum fructibusve, sed etiam 

 a foliorum, caulium, radicumque tantum partium 

 organicarum figura earumque colore, odore, sapore, 

 et totius plantae facie exteriori sumenda esse genuinae 

 methodi principia affirmabat." 



Rivinus first insisted on the classificatory importance 

 of the flower, especially eulogising Caesalpinus and 

 Ray. Tournefort first defined genera as now accepted ; 

 but in his classification he kept Theophrastus's old 

 division into trees and herbs, basing his subdivisions 

 entirely on the corolla. He distinguished the Com- 

 positae, Scrophulariaceae, Labiatae, Rosaceee, Cruci- 

 feree, Umbelliferae, Caryophyllaceae, Liliaceae, Amen- 

 tiferae, Ferns, and Fungi ; but the primary division 

 renders his system far inferior to that of Ray. It, 

 however, prevailed on the continent till the time of 

 Linnaeus, as did Ray's in Britain. Tournefort de- 

 scribed 698 genera, including 10, 146 species. Among 

 British botanists of this period it will suffice to name 

 Plukenet, Bobart, Buddie, Petiver, Sloane, Dillenius, 

 and Blackstone. The "Specimen Botanicum" of 

 the latter, Pulteney says, "I consider as the last 

 book published in England on the indigenous botany 

 before the system of Linnaeus had gained the ascen- 



