I^^TRODUCTION CXV 



Melitae, Galliae el Italiae. Auctore Paulo Boccone. Oxford, 1674, pp. 96, 

 tt. 52, figs. 119. The book is dedicated to Mr. Hatton. In 1672 

 Morison published, as a specimen of the great work which he was 

 meditating, his Plantarum UmbelH/erarum Distributio nova, per Tdbulas 

 cognationis et affinitatis ex libro Naturae observata et detecta, Oxoniae, 1672, 

 folio, pp. 91, tt. 12. In this treatise the Umbelliferae are divided into 

 nine orders, the genera of which are distinguished by the figure of 

 the seed, with the help in some of the subdivisions of that of the 

 leaf. They are illustrated by 150 figures of different fruits. The 

 author has subjoined what he names ' Umbelliferous plants improperly 

 so-called.' These are Valeriana, Thalidrum, Filipendula, Valeriana Graeca, 

 Pimpinella, and Sanguisorba. The dedication is to the Duke of Ormonde. 

 The plates are very good ; one of TJialictrum majus foliis rugosis trifidis 

 [Thalidrum Jlavum'] is excellent, and was probably drawn from a local 

 specimen. The only plant that we can claim for our flora is ' Oenanthe 

 maxima . . . , ad ripam Tamesis,' &c., which is Oenanthe crocata of 

 Linnaeus, but the locality is by no means precise. 



This specimen work, which by some is supposed to be really the first 

 volume of the author's Plantarum Historia Universalis Oxoniensis, excited 

 the attention of the learned, augmented Morison's reputation at home 

 and abroad, and encouraged him to prosecute with vigour his magnum 

 opus, which appeared soon after under the title of Plantarum Ristoriae 

 Universalis Oxoniensis, pars secunda ; Seu Herbarum Distributio nova, 

 per Tabulas cognationis et aflBnitatis, ex libro Naturae- observata et 

 detecta. Oxoniae, folio, 1680, pp. 617. In this work all herbaceous 

 plants ai*e distributed into fifteen classes, the first five of which 

 Morison lived to publish ; four others were completed by him, and 

 published after his death by Jacob Bobart ; the remaining classes 

 were completed and published by Bobart. 



Sachs, in his History of Botany, on pp. 66-68, says of Morison that he 

 was the first, after Cesalpino and Caspar Bauhin, who devoted himself 

 to systematic botany, that is, to founding and perfecting the classi- 

 fication of plants. He was reproached by his contemporaries and 

 successors with having borrowed without acknowledgement from 

 Cesalpino, but this was an exaggeration. Morison commenced his 

 efforts as a systematist with a careful examination of Caspar Baiahin's 

 Pinax ; there he obtained his conceptions of natural relationship in 

 plants, and if he afterwards founded his own system more peculiarly 

 on the form of the fruit, it was in a very different way from that 

 adopted by Cesalpino. Linnaeus answers the above-mentioned 

 reproach by the pertinent remark that Morison departs as far from 

 Cesalpino in this point as he is inferior to him in the j)urity of his 

 method. Sprengel, in his History 0/ Botany, vol. ii. p. 30, suspects that 

 Jung's manuscript, which was communicated by Hartlieb to Kay in 



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