268 OF BOTANICAL AUllANG EMENT. 



them. Yet the ancients have scarcely used any further 

 classification of plants than the vague and superhcial 

 division into trees, shrahs and herbs, except a conside- 

 ration of their places of growtlj, and also of their 

 qualities. The earlier botanists among the moderns 

 almost inevitably fell into some rude arrangement of 

 the objects of their study, and distributed them under 

 the heads of Grasses, Bulbous plants. Medicinal or 

 Eatable plants, &c., in which their successors made 

 several improvements, but it is not worth while to con- 

 template them. 



The science of Botanical Arrangement first assumed 

 a regular form under the auspices of Conrad Gesner 

 and Cassalpinus, v.ho, independent of each other, with- 

 out any mutual communication, both conceived the 

 idea of a regular classification of plants, by means of 

 the parts of fructification alone, to which the very ex- 

 istence of Botanv as a science is owin<>;. The first of 

 these has left us scattered hints only, in various letters, 

 communicated to the world after his premature death 

 in 156VJ : the latter published a system, founded on 

 the fruit, except tlie j)rimary division into trees and 

 herbs, in a quarto volume printed at Florence in 1583. 

 This work Linnaeus studied with great care, as appears 

 from the many notes and marked passages in his own 

 copy now before me. Hence he adopted his ideas of 

 the supposed origin of the calyx, corolla, stamens, and 

 pistils, from the outer bark, inner bark, wood and pith, 

 which are nov; proved to be erroneous, in h.is own 



