232 Britain's Heritage of Science 



words. He was, indeed, as Sir J. E. Smith said, " the most 

 accurate in observation, the most philosophical in contem- 

 plation, and the most faithful in description amongst all 

 the botanists of our own or perhaps any other time." In 

 his " Methodus Plantarum Nova " (1682), after recognizing 

 a certain indebtedness to Caesalpino and to Morison, the 

 first Professor of Botany at Oxford, he expounds his system 

 of classification and established, for the first time, the dis- 

 tinction between Dicotyledons and Monocotyledons. Also 

 here he showed the true nature of buds, and indicated many 

 of the Natural Orders which systematists now recognize. 



Unfortunately, like other botanists of the time, he 

 retained the unnatural divisions of plants into trees, shrubs, 

 and herbs. Four years later, Ray published his first 

 volume of the " History of Plants," and, in 1688, the second 

 volume, the third and final volume appearing shortly before 

 his death in 1704. This work contains a description of 

 nearly 7,000 plants. In 1690 he re-edited the " Catalogus 

 Plantarum Anglise," which was the first manual of systematic 

 botany published in England, and was in constant use for 

 nearly a century afterwards. But Ray was far more than 

 a systematist ; in fact, he had a very wholesome and proper 

 disinclination for the founding of new species. As far as 

 appliances of the times went, he investigated the physiology 

 and the histology of plants. His researches on the move- 

 ments of plants and the ascent of sap were as complete as 

 they could be under the conditions prevailing during his 

 lifetime. He, with his colleague Willughby, studied the 

 bleeding of fresh-severed portions of the birch and the 

 sycamore, both of the branches and of the roots. He was 

 inclined, though not definitely decided, to accept the sexu- 

 ality of plants, and supported Grew by his knowledge of 

 the reproductive process in the animal kingdom. However, 

 he did not go further than " ut verisimilem tantum 

 admittamus." But later, he admitted, the male character 

 of the stamens which after all was giving the whole case 

 away. 



Botany, without any doubt, owes a great deal to Ray. 

 As Miall has said, " he introduced many lasting improve- 

 ments fuller descriptions, better definitions, better asso- 



