LECT. I.] SCIENCE OF BOTANY. 27 



from Japan ; many of the Roses from China , the 

 Nasturtium from South America ; and the Pelar- 

 gonium, or Geranium, as it is improperly called, 

 from the coeist of Caffreria. The Potatoe, the 

 chief support of a great majority of our poor, was 

 first described by Caspar Bauhiri in 1590 ; and 

 afterwards brought into this country, whence it 

 was dispersed over Europe*. In our own times 

 we have seen the West Indies enriched with the 

 Bread-fruit by the scientific skill of Sir Joseph 

 Banks ; and every day new plants are brought 

 home and naturalised to our climate, of great im- 

 portance both in an economical and political point 

 of view *f~. Even the arts may be benefited by a 

 knowledge of Botany. Thus, many fine statues 

 might have been preserved, had the fact been sooner 



* It is very generally believed that this useful vegetable 

 was brought from Virginia by Sir Walter Raleigh ; and Willdc- 

 now states that, " in the year 1623, he distributed the first 

 " which he brought from Virginia in Ireland." Doctor Smith 

 Barton has pointed out the errors of this statement : in the first 

 place, Sir Walter never was in Virginia ; secondly, he was not 

 living in 1623; having lost his head in October 1618; and, 

 thirdly, it is by no means certain that the first exclusive depot 

 of the Potatoe was Ireland. 



f The number of plants now known and systematically ar- 

 ranged amounts to 44,000; although those known by the 

 Greeks, Romans, and Arabians, did not exceed 1400; and in 

 Caspar Bauhin's time, all that indefatigable Botanist could col- 

 lect for his Pinax Theatri Botanici, a work of forty years' la- 

 bour, did not exceed six thousand species. 



