HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



\THGN we contemplate the innumerable variety of 

 plants presented to our view, whether in the luxuriant 

 valley, the shady forest, or on the snow -topped mountain, 

 the mind of almost every reflecting person, must be 

 imperceptibly led to admire and investigate so extensive 

 a field of information ; and in this, is constituted the sci- 

 ence of Botany. 



The term Botany, is derived from the Greek word /Jorai/rj, an herb 

 or grass, and that from /3oror, of fto<a, I feed, because most animals 

 feed on herbs, and although it is explained by some writers, as 

 signifying only, a treatise of the nature and properties of vegetables, 

 it is capable of a much more comprehensive meaning, and indeed, is 

 now used with far more freedom. 



2. Botany, to take it in its most extended sense, I 

 should therefore say, is that branch of the history of 

 nature, which relates to the vegetable kingdom, the 

 second of the three grand divisions, into which all ter- 

 restrial objects are divided. 



It is a science by no means limited, since not only the nature and 

 properties of plants enter into its study, it likewise includes their 

 description and classification, their anatomical structure and physi- 

 ology, and in fact, every important particular relative to vegetation. 



