THE ^STUUY OF TLAXTS IX AXCIEXT AXl) MuDERX TIMES. 5 



herlial of Hieronyiims Bock, wliicli appeared in 1546, and in which "tlie herbs 

 gi-owiug in German countries are described from long and sure experience," contains 

 a passage treating of the controversy of the day as to whether the Latin name 

 Erica was applicable to the German Heath or not; and in the midst of the discus- 

 sion the author expresses the opinion tliat "the plants we know best were the least 

 known to the Latins;" and at last he exclaims: "Be our heath the same as Erica 

 or not, it is in anj' case a pretty and sturdy little shrub, beset with numerous Ijrown 

 rounded branches, which are clothed all over with small green leaves; and its 

 appearance is like that of the sweet-smelling Lavender Cotton." And again in a 

 lunnber of other places, after making lengthy p)hilological statements relating to the 

 old names, he ends by losing patience and declaring that the proper thing would lie 

 to lay aside all disputes concerning this nomenclature. 



At length a Belgian, Charles de I'Eeluse (1526-1609), whose name was latinized 

 into Clusius, emancipated himself entirely from the hair-splitting verbal contro- 

 versies of the day. He was also the first to abandon the utilitarian standpoint; 

 and in his extensive work, which appeared at the end of the sixteenth century, 

 he was guided solely by the desire to become acquainted with every flowering thing. 

 He therefore endeavoured to distinguish, describe, and where possible to draw the 

 various forms of plants, to cultivate them, and to preserve them in a dried condition. 

 It was just at that time that collections of dried plants began to lie made. Such a 

 collection was at first called a " hortus vivus," and later on a ' herbarium." All 

 museums of natural history were forthwith furnished with them. Moi'eover, 

 Clusius, actuated by the wish to see with his own eyes what the vegetation on the 

 other side of the mountains looked like, was the first man to travel for the purpose 

 of botanizing. In onler to extend his knowledge of plants he roamed o^•er Europe 

 from the sierras of Spain to the borders of Hungary, and from the sea-coast to 

 the highlands of the Tyrol. Journeys of the kind in pursuit of botanical know- 

 ledge were by degrees extended to wider and wider limits, and thus an alnunlance of 

 uuiti'i'ial was brought together from all latitudes and from every quarter of the globe. 



An immense number of isolated observations were accumulated in this way, till, 

 at length, in the first decades of the eighteenth century, the desirability of sifting 

 and arranging this chaotic mass became urgent. When, therefore, the Swedish 

 naturalist Linn;eus (1707-1778), by the exercise of unparalleled industrj-, mastered 

 in a fabulously short space of time the detailed results of centui'ies of laliour, and 

 attbrded a general survey of all this scattered material, he obtained universal 

 recognition. Linnaeus introduced short names for the various species in place of 

 the cumbrous older designations, and showed how to distinguish the species by 

 means of concise descriptions. For this purpose he marked out the dift'erent i)arts 

 of a plant as root, stem, leaf, bract, calj^x, corolla, stamens, pistil, fruit, and seeds. 

 Again, he distinguished particular forms of those organs, as, for instance, scapes, 

 haulms, and peduncles as forms of stems, and in addition also the parts of each 

 organ, such as filaments, anthers, and pollen in the stamens, and ovary, style, and 

 stigma in the pistil; anil to each one of these objects he assigned a technical name 



