HARDIVICRE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



35 



dancy over that of Mr. Ray." It was published in 

 1746. 



Carl von Linne, born in 1707, died in 1778. The 

 first sketch of his artificial sexual system appeared in 

 his " Systema Naturae," published at Leyden in 1735, 

 and it was further carried out in the "Genera Plan- 

 tarum" (1737) and the " Species Plantarum " (1753), 

 in which no less than 7294 species are defined. Lin- 

 naeus's great services to botany were the establishment 

 of the binomial system of nomenclature and of ver- 

 bally-accurate and terse definitions. He required 

 every species to be definable in twelve words. He 

 adopted Ray's division of the vegetable kingdom into 

 flowering and flowerless, coining the names Phane- 

 rogamia and Cryptogamia, and then divided phane- 

 rogams into twenty-three classes by the number and 

 character of the stamens. These were mainly sub- 

 divided into Orders, according to the number of 

 carpels. Linnaeus himself only regarded this as a 

 tentative system for practical purposes. " Methodi 

 naturalis fragmenta," he writes, " studiose inquirenda 

 sunt. Primum et ultimum hoc in botanicis deside- 

 ratum est. Natura non facit saltus. Plantae omnes 

 utrinque affinitatem monstrant, uti territorium in 

 mappa geographica . . . Diu et ego circa methodum 

 naturalem inveniendam laboravi . . . perficere non 

 potui." I cannot refrain from quoting the following 

 advice to the tyro from his " Philosophia Botanica" 

 (1751), in which work he lays down the sensible rules, 

 "Descriptio ordinem nascendi sequatur," and " De- 

 scriptio compendiosissime, tamen perfecte, terminis 

 tantum artis, si sufficientes sint, partes depingat." 

 " Tyro ignotas sibi plantarum species investiget ipse, 

 secundum classes, characteres, differentiasque syste- 

 matis. 



" Principia et Fundamentum Botanices rite intel- 

 ligat. 



"Historiam literariam Botanices sibi familiarem 

 reddat et imprimis auctores de speciebus plantarum 

 consulendos. Synonyma auctorum, retrogrediendo 

 ad inventores, evolvere adsuescat." 



The "Flora Britannica " of Dr. (commonly called 

 Sir) John Hill was the first work arranged on the 

 new system in England ; but, as Sir J. E. Smith said, 

 it was the "Flora Anglica" of William Hudson, 

 first published in 1762, that "marks the establish- 

 ment of Linnaean principles of botany in England." 

 A second edition appeared in 1778, the year of 

 Linnaeus's death. Sir James Edward Smith, who 

 purchased Linnaeus's herbarium and library, and 

 was the main founder and first president of the 

 Linnean Society, established in 1788, strongly, in 

 fact, too strongly, supported the Linnaean system, 

 adopting it in his " Flora Britannica " (1800-4) and 

 in his "English Flora" (1824-8). In 1776 appeared 

 the first edition of that very influential work, the 

 "Botanical Arrangement" of William Withering; 

 land it is most important for the student to note that 

 Linnaeus, Hudson, Withering, and Smith very fre- 



quently meant very different plants when using one 

 name. In 1777 William Curtis commenced the 

 "Flora Londinensis," which he continued till 1798, 

 the year before his death, and in 1787 he began 

 the " Botanical Magazine." Sir James Smith in 1790 

 commenced the issue of "English Botany," illus- 

 trated by James Sowerby, and in 1807 Professor 

 Thomas Martyn, in the ninth edition of "Miller's 

 Gardener's and Botanist's Dictionary," may be said 

 to have summarised the botany of his time with 

 considerable attention to early authors. 



We next come to the last of our four periods, that 

 of the rise of the natural system — a period in which 

 the growth of our knowledge of plants may be par- 

 tially estimated from the facts that in 1819 Augustin 

 De Candolle estimated the known species of phane- 

 rogams at 30,000, in 1839 Loudon enumerated 31,731 ; 

 in 1846 Lindley gave 80,387, and in 1853, 92,920. 



It is Bernard de Jussieu to whom belongs the glory 

 of working out the true natural system, which he 

 embodied in his arrangement of the Trianon Gar- 

 den (1759). In 1773 his nephew, Antoine-Laurent 

 de Jussieu, having studied his uncle's grouping, com- 

 municated a paper to the Academic des Sciences on 

 the Ranunculacere, in which he showed the great 

 truth of the relative value of characters, that they 

 must be weighed, not counted. He extended his 

 views to other Orders in the following year, and in 

 17S9 published his "Genera Plantarum secundum 

 Ordines Naturales disposita," which, according to 

 Sir Joseph Hooker, "with slight modifications, has 

 ever since retained its position as the basis of a com- 

 plete scientific classification." 



Robert Brown (born 1773, died 1858), "facile 

 princeps botanicorum," as Humboldt termed him, 

 was the first in this country to advocate the natural 

 system. This he did in his " Prodromus Florae Novce 

 Hollandiae," published in 1810. In 1818 Augustin 

 De Candolle commenced his "magnum opus," 

 "Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Vegetabilium," 

 which has been, with the assistance of many botanists, 

 completed, in seventeen volumes, by his son Alphonse 

 in 1873, an< l contains descriptions of every known 

 species of Dicotyledon. 



In 1 82 1 was published the first British Flora on 

 the new system, Samuel Gray's "Natural Arrange- 

 ment of British Plants," and in 1829 Dr. Lindley 

 produced his "Synopsis of the British Flora." In 

 1830 Sir William Jackson Hooker, who had con- 

 tinued the "Flora Londinensis" from 1821 to 1828, 

 published the first edition of his "British Flora," 

 and in 1843 Professor Babington issued the first 

 edition of his "Manual of British Botany." Then 

 commenced those great series of works which immor- 

 talise the names of Loudon and Hewett Watson. 

 Loudon may be termed the Martyn of the period, 

 and his works, especially the "Encyclopaedia of 

 Plants" (1855) are a wonderful summary marking 

 the progress of half a century. Mr. Watson, in Ids 



