INTRODUCTION. XV 
French botanist, the great leader of the French school, 
born at Aix, in Provence, in 1656, whose hardy frame 
and enterprising spirit made him despise the rigorous 
climate of the Alps and Pyrenees, and to whom we 
are indebted for the best botanical description of those 
regions. At this time, with the facilities and impetus 
given to all branches of science by the improvement 
in printing and engraving, shone forth the trans- 
cendent genius of the great Linneus. His wonderful 
mind gave a new aspect to every branch of the study of 
natural history, and more particularly to botany. ‘This 
great naturalist was born at Rashult, in the province of 
Smaland in Sweden, in the year 1707; his family name 
was Lindelius, supposed to have its origin from a famous 
linden tree which grew in the neighbourhood of the 
family residence. He was very carly imbued with the 
love of botany, but the display of his extraordinary 
abilities, like those of many other illustrious men, de- 
pended upon accident, and but for the kind offices of a 
physician of the name of Rothman, those of Linnzeus would 
have been for ever suppressed, his father having felt so 
much disappointment with his earlier studies, that he con- 
sidered him only fit for a tradesman, and destined him to 
be a shoemaker. The poverty of Linneus obliged him to 
struggle with great hardships in his earlier years, and 
when studying at Upsal he was glad to wear the cast-off 
clothes of his fellow-students, and mended his own shoes 
with the bark of trees, and it was owing to the kind- 
ness of the lady who afterwards became his wife that he 
could raise the money which enabled him to graduate at 
Leyden. Since the time of Linnzus, therefore, we may 
