BOTANY. 



that they ihoulti have been able to glean that smattering out of any 

 other field thui a very rich one. For example, the sexuality of planta, 

 which Arututle had denied, which Theophrastus had adverted to, U 

 ipokeu of iu positive term* ; grafting, in uiore way* than one, and 

 even budding, are spoken of iu language which U remarkably precise 

 for the word* of a -jxxjt; and although to these operation* were 

 attributed power* which they did not possess, yet it is abundantly 

 plain that the processes were thoroughly understood. The 



" Aniniitui in lpo 



Fit nodo tln<u ; hue alien* ex arbore rernien 

 IncluUunt udoquc docont Inolewere hbro," 



is as correct a description of the operation called budding as any 

 modern could give in so many words; and it is impossible that such 

 an operation should ever have been devised without a much more 

 large and accurate knowledge of vegetable physiology than it is 

 generally believed that the ancients possessed. 



From this time forward all inquiry into matters of science began 

 to decline. Under the later Roman emperors science became gradually 

 extinguished ; under the Byzantine princes it con scarcely be said to 

 have been preserved ; and the little attention it subsequently received 

 from a few obscure writers rather hastened than arrested its 

 downfall. 



Upon the revival of science in Europe the writings of the classical 

 and Arabian herbalists were taken as the text-books of the schools, 

 but their errors were multiplied by false translations, their supersti- 

 tions were admitted without question ; and so little was added by the 

 monkish authors, that between the time of Elm Beithar, who flourished 

 in the 13th century, and the year 1532, when the ' Herbarum Vivas 

 Eicones' of Otho Brunafela, a Bernese physician, made their appearance, 

 scarcely a single addition had been mode to the slender stock of 

 knowledge of about 1400 species, which are computed by Sprengel to 

 have formed the total amount discovered by all botanists, Oreek, 

 Roman, and Arabian, up to the death of Abdallatif of Baghdad. 

 BruusfeL) describes the state of botany as being in his day most 

 deplorable, as being firincipolly in the hands of the most ignorant 

 persons, and as consisting of a farrago of long and idle commentaries, 

 disfigured " by myriads of barbarous, obsolete, and ridiculous names." 

 He deserves to be mentioned as the first reformer in this science, and 

 as the earliest writer who earnestly endeavoured to purify the 

 corrupted streams which had flowed through so many ages of barbarism 

 from the ancient Greek and Roman fountains. His example was 

 speedily followed by Tragus, Fuchsius, Matthiolus, and others. The 

 knowledge of species rapidly augmented, partly by the examination 

 of indigenous plants and partly by the remarks of the earlier 

 travellers, who about the year 1460 began to turn their attention to 

 the vegetable kingdom ; till at last their abundance became so great 

 as to call for the assistance of compilers capable of digesting what had 

 already begun to be scattered through numberless works. The first 

 undertaking of the kind was by Conrad Gesner, a native of Zurich, 

 who died in the year 1 565. This excellent man spent the latter part 

 of his life in collecting materials for a general history of plants. He 

 is stated to have caused above 1500 drawings to be prepared for the 

 illustration of his undertaking, but unfortunately he died before his 



Soject was executed, and his materials were afterwards dispersed, 

 e appears however to have brought about one most important 

 change in science, by discovering that the distinctions and true nature 

 of plants were to be sought in their organs of reproduction rather 

 than in those of nutrition. This was assuredly the first step that 

 had been taken forward iu the science since the fall of the Roman 

 empire, and is abundant evidence of the great superiority of Gesner 

 over all those who had preceded him. From this time collections of 

 species were made by numerous writers ; our countryman Turner, 

 Dodoens, Label, Clusius Ctcsolpinus, and the Bauhinx, were the most 

 distinguished writers between the years 1550 and 1600 ; and among 

 them the number of known species was so exceedingly increased, 

 especially by the discoveries of Clusius, that it became impossible to 

 reduce them into any order without the adoption of some principle 

 of classification. Hence originated the first attempts at systematical 

 arrangement with which commences 



The Stcond Era. It is to Matthew Lobel, n Dutch physician 

 residing in England in the time of Elizabeth, that the honour is to 

 be ascribed of having been the first to strike out a method by which 

 plants could be so arranged, that those which are most alike should 

 be placed next to each other, or in other words, which should be an 

 expression of their natural relations. As may be supposed this early 

 attempt at the discovery of a natural system was exceedingly nide 

 and imperfect; it is however remarkable for having comprehended 

 several combinations which are recognise'! at the present day : 

 bilaettf, fitrllalir, Urnminrir, LaJbiata, Boraginae, Le;/umin<istf, I'ilin*, 

 were all distinctly indicated ; and it may be added, tlmt under the 

 name of Atpkodtlt he grouped the principal part of modern petaloid 

 monocotyledons. The reasons however why such groups were con- 

 stituted were not then susceptible of definition ; the true principles 

 of clamification had to be elicited by the long and patient study of 

 succeeding Bges. Among the foremost to take up this important 

 subject was Cnmolpinus, a Roman physician attached to the court of 

 Pope Sixtus V. This naturalist possessed a degree of insight into 

 the science far beyond that of his age, and is memorable for the 



BOTANY. 



JO 



justness with which he appreciated many of the less obvious circum- 

 stances which his predecessors had overlooked. For example, he was 

 ware of the circulation of the sap : he believed that its ascent from 

 the roots was caused by heat; he knew that leaves are cortical expan- 

 sions traversed by veins proceeding in part from the liber ; he estimated 

 the pith of plants at its true value, and seeds he compared to eggs, in 

 which there exists a vital principle without life; but he denied the 

 existence of sexes in the vegetable kingdom, Improving ujion tin- 

 views of Gesuer, he showed how great is the value of the ft 

 in systematic botany ; the flower he said was nothing but the wrapper 

 of the fruit ; the essential part of the seed he considered to be what 

 is called thecorculum, that is, the double cone of plumule and radicle 

 which connects the cotyledons. In general his views of vegetable 

 physiology were much more just than those of his predecessors, and 

 if he did not avoid the error of supposing certain plants t.. IK- m, -re 

 abortions of more perfect species, as many grasses of corn, he amply 

 redeemed his fame by the correction of other mistakes. From diner- 

 euces in the fruit and the seed of plants he formed a system which, 

 though purely artificial and never much employed, had the un- 

 coiling attention strongly to the existence of a class of important 

 characters which had previously been either overlooked or under- 

 valued. 



But notwithstanding the attempts thus made by a few diatinpt. 

 men to elevate the science to a higher station, and to reduce it to some 

 general principles, it still continued to languish and to remain for the 

 most port in the hands of the most ignorant pretenders, and in no 

 country more so than in England. We find upon the authority of 

 the celebrated Ray, that in this country in the middle of the 17th 

 century it was in the most lamentable state. At that time the standard 

 book of English botanists was a publication called Gerarde's ' Herbal,' 

 which was, as Ray tells us, the production of a man almost entirely 

 ignorant of the learned languages, in which nevertheless all books on 

 science were at that time written. The principal part of the work was 

 pirated from the 'Femptades' of Dodoens, turned into English by 

 one Priest, and in order to conceal the plunder the arrangement of 

 Dodoens was exchanged for that of Lobel, while the whole was made 

 up with the wood-blocks of Tabernscuiontanus's ' Kruuterbuch. 

 unskilfully transposed and confounded. At last a change as sudden as 

 it was important was produced in the science by the application of the 

 microscope to botanical purposes. 



The Third Era. About the middle of the 17th century this instru- 

 ment wan first employed in the examination of the elementary organs 

 of plants, about which nothing had been previously learned since the 

 time of Theophrastus. The discovery of spiral vessels by Hcnshaw 

 in 1661, the examination of the cellular tissue by Hook at a somewhat 

 later date, at once excited the attention of observers and led at nearly 

 the same time to the appearance of two works upon vegetable anatomy, 

 which at once so nearly exhausted the subject that it can scarcely be 

 said to have again advanced till the beginning of the present century. 

 Grew and Malpighi, the writers here adverted to, but more especially 

 the former, combined with rare powers of observation a degree of 

 patience which few men have ever 'possessed. They each examined 

 the anatomy of vegetation in its minutest details, the former princi- 

 pally in the abstract, the latter more comparatively with the animal 

 kingdom. Various forms of cellular tissue, intercellular passages, 

 spiral vessels, woody tubes, ducts, the nature of hairs, the true struc- 

 ture of wood, were made at once familiar to the botanist ; the real 

 nature of sexes in plants was demonstrated ; and it is quite surprising 

 to look bock on those days from the present high ground on which 

 botany has taken its stand, and to see how little the views of Grew at 

 least have subsequently required correction. From him physiological 

 botany properly speaking took its origin. Clear and distinct ideas of 

 the true causes of vegetable phenomena gradually arose out of a 

 consideration of the physical properties of the minute parts through 

 whose eoml lined action they are brought about; and a solid founda- 

 tion was laid for the theories of vegetation which subsequent botanists 

 have propounded : to Grew may also be ascribed the honour of having 

 first pointed out the important difference between seeds with one 

 cotyledon and those with two, and of having thus been the discoverer 

 of the two great natural classes into which the flowering part of the 

 vegetable kingdom is now divided. Grew however was no systematist; 

 it was reserved for another Englishman to. discover the true principles 

 of classification, and thus to commence 



The Fourth Kra. John Ray, a man of capacious mind, of singular 

 powers of observation and of extensive learning, driven from his 

 collegiate employments by the infamous commands of a profligate 

 prince, sought consolation in the study of natural history, to which 

 he had been attached from his youth. Botany he found was fast 

 settling back into the chaos of the middle ages, partly beneath tin- 

 weight of undigested materials, but more from the want of mime fixed 



principles by which the knowledge of the day .-) Id ! m- tl 



Profiting by the discoveries of Grew mid tin- other vest-table anato- 

 mists, to which he added a great store of original "< . he in 

 hi- ' Ilistoria Plantarum,' the first volume of which appeared in ir.Mi, 

 embodied in one connected series all the facts that had been collected 

 uiiig the structure and functions of plants: to these he added 

 an exposition of what he considered the philosophy of classification, 

 as indicated partly by human reason and partly by exp>: 



