THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 55 



resented in the Australian flora. The elder, John, wrote an illus- 

 trated " Historia Plantarum Universalis," in three volumes, which, 

 however, was not published till many years after his death. A 

 copy is here for your inspection. Caspar Bauhin interests us 

 more, inasmuch as we see in his '' Prodronius Theatri Botanici," 

 1620, a more scientific method adopted than in the works of any 

 of his predecessors. He was born in Basel, Switzerland, in 1550, 

 and studied, like his elder brother, under Dr. Fuchs. A number 

 of the names given by him were literally adopted by Linne, and 

 Baron von Mueller was of opinion that his name should figure 

 as authority in these cases. This is, however, condemned by the 

 best English authorities and most other leading botanists, who main- 

 tain that real botanical science, in the modern sense, commences 

 with Linnaeus. The celebrated Professor Sachs claims for Bauhin 

 that he had already a good j)erception of the difference between 

 geinis and species, and that his arrangement manifests an approach 

 to a natural system, as shown in his " Pinax," of which work a 

 copy is here for your inspection. Another great merit of the work 

 is the painstaking manner in which he cleared up the synonymy, 

 many of his predecessors having given names according to their 

 fancy in trying to identify the plants of Greece mentioned by 

 Dioscorides with those of Northern Europe. I should not omit 

 to mention that Caspar Bauhin appeared first as a botanical 

 author already in 1596. In his later works he enumerates already 

 6,000 species of plants. What we, however, miss in Bauhin is 

 the recognition of the differences in the reproductive organs of 

 the plants, inasmuch as he confined himself principally to the 

 description of their habit and general outward appearance. The 

 honour of having fitst studied the different organs of plants 

 belongs to Professor Andrea Caesalpino, born in Arezzo, Italy, 

 in 15 19, died in 1603. Chronologically I should, perhaps, have 

 mentioned him before Bauhin, but that the latter belonged rather 

 to the earlier school, and that with Caesalpino we enter upon a 

 new phase of botanical science. His principal work, " De Plantis 

 T>ibri XVI.," appeared in Florence in 1583, and, again quoting 

 from Sachs, there is often evidence in the writings of Linne that 

 that great genius in some cases obtained his cue from the observa- 

 tions of Caesalpino. Of course we cannot be surprised to find 

 statements in books of that remote period which appear absurd to 

 us now. One thing should still be mentioned — viz., that 

 through the observations of the details of plants Caesalpino 

 was drawn towards an artificial system in the arrangement 

 of plants as worked out more perfectly in the later times 

 by Linne, while Bauhin contemplated more their general appear- 

 ance, and therefore came nearer to a natural arrangement, as 

 adopted by the present generation. Following in the footsteps of 

 Caesalpino, Joachim Jungius appears ne.xt on the scene, who was 



