INTRODUCTION 9 



trees rise in cones, globes, and pyramids. We see the marks 

 of the scissars upon every plant and bush." 



The suffering eye inverted nature sees, 



Trees cut to statues, statues thick as trees. POPE. 



Two large yews were clipped to represent two giants 

 guarding the entrance to the Garden, which were the subjects 

 of much rival wit in the University. Three ballads appertain- 

 ing to them are preserved in " Wood's Collection " among the 

 Ashmolean books. (For one, see Appendix A.) 



A matter of far greater scientific importance is the claim of 

 the Oxford Garden to a share in the discovery of the sexuality 

 of plants, which was first clearly demonstrated by experiment 

 by Camerarius of Tubingen in 1691-4. More than a decade 

 earlier our Oxford Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy, Sir 

 Thomas Millington, suggested to Grew * that the stamens or 

 attire " served as the male for the generation of the seed " ; and 

 Dr. Daubeny inferred, with some probability, that the facts by 

 which Millington had arrived at this conclusion would be 

 drawn from observations made on plants growing in the 

 Botanic Garden of his own University, then recently founded. 

 Unfortunately, we have none of Millington's own botanical 

 writings ; and Grew had a habit of mixing up his botany with 

 the fantastic chemical theories of his contemporaries. 



On the death of Morison in 1683, the son of Bobart, 

 also named Jacob, succeeded to the chair of botany, and 

 continued the labours of his predecessor by the publication 

 of the third part of the Oxford History of Plants. 



Jacob Bobart, the younger, appears to have been the first 

 to circulate an Oxford Seed-list t among the gardeners of 



* Grew, " Lecture on the Anatomy of Flowers," " Philosophical Trans- 

 actions," Nov. 1676. 



t A copy is still extant in the British Museum (Sloane MS. 3343), 

 where, too, are preserved forty-two of his letters to Sir Hans Sloane 

 and to James Petiver, F.R.S., who dedicated to him Table xiii. of 

 " Gazophylacii Naturae et Artis," 8vo, London, 1702. The poem en- 



