100 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



man. It is likel\- that for ages man's interest in plants did 

 not go much beyond the phases here mentit^ned. Iii the 

 course of time. hf)\vever. a considerable body of useful infor- 

 mation about plants must have accumulated, derived largely 

 from the experience of hunters, fishers, farmers, physicians 

 and others who came into contact with wild plants. At 

 first this knowledge was probabh' handed down from father 

 to son, but as it increased in amount it was ultimately written 

 down for l)etter preservation. 



Just who wrote the first book on plants it would be im- 

 possible to sav. .Vt a very early date the Greeks, Arabians, 

 Egyptians and other eastern [)eoples had a considerable 

 knowledge of plants and there is even said to have existed a 

 treatise on medicine as early as the fifteenth century before 

 Christ. The Greeks, especially, took a keen interest in all 

 phases of nature and they were among the first to regard 

 plants as living things and not merely as food materials. Un- 

 doubtedly manv books about plants were wTitten and since 

 completelv lost to the world. The first about which much 

 information has been handed down to us was written about 

 400 vears before Christ bv a Greek named Aristotle. The 

 treatise itself is unfortunately lost l)ut much of it is familiar 

 to us through references to it bv later writers. Aristotle's 

 father was court phvsician to the Macedonian King Amyntas 

 and, since the early physicians gathered the herbs and made 

 the medicines they used, the boy undoubtedly grew up in a 

 botanical atmosphere. At the age of 18 he went to Athens 

 where he studied in the school of the great philosopher, 

 Plato, and later became the teacher of the young Alexander, 

 renowned as the concjuerer of the w'orld. Aristotle's writ- 

 ings are said to have comprised more than 300 books on al- 

 most everv phase of human knowledge. He is often styled 

 the "Father of Natural Historv" and is said to have had 



