CHAPTER I. 



THE ORIGIN OF THE TERM DIANTHUS— THE NAME OF A 



GENUS OF PLANTS— HISTORY FROM THEOPHRASTUS 



TO ALEGATIERE. 



THREE hundred years before the Christian Era, Theo- 

 phrastus, a disciple of Socrates, philosopher and moralist, 

 lived in Greece. He published a little work on the 

 Flora of his native land; he had no conception of genera and 

 species, and divided all plants into three classes; Aquatic, Flower- 

 ing Plants, and Culinar}' Herbs. He wrote in Greek, and was 

 the first author to mention and name a little procumbent, five 

 petaled flowering plant; he called it Dianthus, from two Greek 

 words, Dio (divine), ajithos (flower), meaning Divine flower. 



In the evolution of botanical science Theophrastus was fol- 

 lowed by Discorides, Pliny, and Galen, in the second century. 

 From this period until the sixteenth century botany was not en- 

 riched by a single work of merit. During this long interval ot 

 time, the little light that had been thrown on the vegetable 

 kingdom by a few early authors became more dim and obscure. 



In the sixteenth century, Gesner of Germany was the first to 

 establish families ot plants founded on resemblances, or aflSnities, 

 and his labors awakened new interest in botanical pursuits. 

 Einnaeus lived in the eighteenth century and gave a new no- 

 menclature to botanical science. He described with precision 

 every organ of a plant now known, and gave them appropriate 

 names which are still closely adhered to. His classification of the 

 vegetable world is called the "Artificial System." Einnseus is 

 called the "Prince of Naturalists." With a few admitted defects, 

 no arrangement of the plants has yet been offered as simple and 

 effective as his. 



After Einnseus, Jussien proposed a system of classification 

 founded upon certain distinctions which was found to be universal, 



