ROUGH NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



two letters which form the object of this discussion. Those who have clearly seen their 

 true meaning will permit me, without doubt, to save them the annoyance of a useless re- 

 petition, and to refer the editors of the papers of which I spoke above, to a rather more 

 attentive perusal of the numbers of the Comptcs rendws, where they are inserted. After 

 which they will be quite at liberty to show that I am wrong; but they will first admit, I 

 hope, that they have misinformed their readers with respect to the consequences resulting 

 from my work on the phenomena of dew. 



ROUGH NOTES ON THE HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



BY A. A. F., SYRACUSE, N. Y. 



Though the science of botany is one of the oldest in the world, we cannot but admit 

 that by mankind in general it has been deplorably neglected. For centuries, a knowledge 

 of this delightful science was confined within the walls of monasteries, so that little bo- 

 tanical information reached the minds of the populace. In the earlier ages there were 

 botanical devotees — "herbalites," as they called themselves, who devoted themselves to 

 the study of plants; but the advancement which they made was liable to be lost and for- 

 gotten in the dim light of the dark ages. All concentrated their efforts to one point, name- 

 ly, the classification of plants, which seemed to baffle all their investigations, and set at 

 naught their united researches. 



The oldest mention of the subject of plants which we have, may be found in the Histo- 

 ry of the Creation of the World, by Moses. It was on the third day of this great work 

 that God said, " Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree 

 yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself upon the earth, and it was so, and the 

 earth brought forth grass, and the herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding 

 fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind, and God saw that it was good." It is re- 

 corded that Adam gave names to all the beasts of the field and to all the fowls of the air, 

 and to everything wherein was life. But Milton imagines that to Eve was assigned the 

 pleasant task of naming all the flowers, and numbering their tribes. When our parents 

 were cast out of Paradise for their disobedience, and were about to depart from their de- 

 lightful home, Eve, in the bitter anguish of her soul exclaims — 



O, unexpected stroke, worse than death ! 

 Must I leave thee, Paradise? Thus leave 

 Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades, 

 Fit haunts for Gods, where I had hoped to spend. 

 Quiet though sad, the respite of that day. 

 That must be mortal to us both. O flowers, 

 That never will in other climate grow, 

 My early visitation, and my last 

 At even, which I bred up with tender hand 

 From the first opening bud, and gave ye names, 

 Who now shall rear yo to the sun, and rank 

 Your tribes ? 



The Bible and the poems of Homer, afford us the only vestiges of the botanical know- 

 ledge in the earlier stages of the world. Among the most renowned of early botanists 

 were Aristotle, who published various works upon Natural History about 386 years 

 Christ. Theophrastus published a work entitled " The Causes of Vegetation," 

 A History of Plants." He treated upon the different kinds of plants separately, 



