60 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



timber, on the ornamental plants of the garden, on wild 

 plants, on various kinds of grain, on gums and resins, and 

 so forth, dealing with the whole subject in a broad and 

 comprehensive way. He was one of the chosen followers 

 of Aristotle, and was entrusted by him at his decease with 

 all his writings. He died at the age of a little over a 

 century, regretting the shortness of his life, and that he 

 had been able to do so little of what he had proposed to him- 

 self. Dioscorides, whose name we have from time to time 

 had occasion to introduce, was the third of the great trio 

 of ancient Greek writers on natural history. 



The first of the Greek botanical works introduced into 

 Western Europe on the invention of the printing-press 

 was the treatise of Dioscorides. A Latin translation of 

 this was prepared by a Venetian nobleman, and issued 

 from the press in the year 1478. The work of the second 

 great Greek writer on plants, Theophrastus, was printed 

 only five years afterwards, in 1483. Both these books ran 

 through many editions, and, at the time of their repub- 

 lication in the Middle Ages, they were held in great esteem. 



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