CAROLUS LINN&US 53 



dations of scientific botany had been laid by 

 Caesalpino, an Italian physician and uni- 

 versity professor of botany, 124 years before 

 Linnseus was born. He selected his granite 

 blocks of principle so well, and laid them so 

 securely, that the superstructure of modern 

 systematic botany rests upon them. Every 

 variation of botanical system that has been 

 builded in the last 324 years has rested on 

 the Caesalpinian foundation, i. e., that in the 

 fruit and seed of plants we have the key to 

 their affinities. Not one of the great geniuses 

 botanical in later times who have most ad- 

 vanced the science has questioned the validity 

 of that principle. Not one has yet dared to 

 predict that the Csesalpinian foundations are 

 likely ever to be abandoned as insecure. 



The earlier disciples of Caesalpino made 

 many amendments and signal improvements 

 of his system, through further study of floral 

 structure, as furnishing yet other clews to 

 plant affinities. The summing up of these 

 many improvements was made by Tournefort, 

 whose Elements of Botany, published in 1694, 

 111 years after Caesalpino's great work, and 

 thirteen years before the birth of Linnseus, 

 took the whole botanical world captive, and 

 held undisputed sway, until everywhere but 



