4 THE STUDY OF PLANTS IN ANCIENT AND MODERN TIMES. 



knowledge, yet there is no doubt that, as in art, the effect was to stimulate and 

 reform; and that this study led up to the source, so long forgotten, whence the 

 ancients had themselves drawn their knowledge, that is, to the direct investigation 

 of nature, which has invariably given to every branch of human knowledge new 

 and pregnant life. 



As regards botanical knowledge in particular, the study of old Greek writings 

 on the part of western nations in both Northern and Southern Europe had the 

 immediate effect of instituting an eager search for all the different kinds of 

 indigenous plants; and, besides arousing a passion for investigation, it evoked un- 

 tiring industry in this pursuit, the results of which preserved in a number of bulky 

 herbals still excite our wonder and respect. If these folios, dating for the most part 

 from the first half of the sixteenth century, are perused in the hope of their reveal- 

 ing some guiding principle as a basis for the arrangement of the subject, the reader 

 will no doubt be obliged to lay them aside unsatisfied. The plants were described 

 and discussed just as the authors happened to come across them; and it is only 

 here and there that we find a feeble attempt to range together and make groups of 

 nearly-allied species. Only cursory attention was paid to the facts of geographical 

 distribution. Plants native to the soil, herbs which flowered in gardens and had 

 been reared from seed purchased from itinerant vendors of antidotes, and plants 

 whose fruits were brought to Europe as curiosities from the New World recently 

 discovered — all these were jumbled together in a confused medley. The whole 

 endeavour of the time was directed to the enumeration and description of all such 

 things as possess the power of producing green foliage and maturing fruit under 

 the sun's quickening rays. 



Owing to the fact that researches were then limited to the native soil of the 

 student, most of the botanical authors of that day had but dark inklings of the 

 extent to which the floras of various latitudes and areas differ. They assumed that 

 plants of the Mediterranean shores, which had been described centuries before by 

 Theophrastus or Dioscorides or Pliny, were necessarily the same as those of their 

 own more inclement countries. The German " Fathers of Botany " (Brunf els, born 

 about 1495, died 1534; Bock, 1498-1554; Fuchs, 1501-1566, are the best known) 

 applied the old Greek and Latin names without scruple to the species growing in 

 their own localities. They were so firmly convinced of the identity of the German, 

 Greek, and Italian floras that even the numerous inconsistencies occurring in the 

 descriptions did not disconcert them, or prevent them from discussing at great 

 length whether a particular name was intended by Theophrastus and Dioscorides to 

 indicate this or that plant. It was by slow degrees that botanists first began to 

 abandon these fruitless debates concerning the Greek and Latin names of plants, 

 with which it had been the custom to fill so many pages of the herbals. Step by 

 step they became conscious that although the yellow pages of the ancient books 

 deserved all gratitude for the stimulating influence they had exercised, yet the 

 green book of nature should be set above them. This led to their devoting 

 themselves entirely to direct researches in the subject of their native floras. The 



