OLDER SYSTEMS OF CLASSIFICATION. 601 



The first botanical writer to break with these old traditions was Clusius 

 (1526-1609); he described plants as he observed them, quite apart from their 

 value to man. Clusius, though a Belgian, spent many years of his life at Vienna, 

 and thoroughly explored the Flora of Austro-Hungary; previously he had investi- 

 gated the plants of Spain and Portugal. To England he paid more than one 

 visit, and received many exotic plants from Sir Francis Drake, the voyager. In 

 his Rariorum Plantarum Historia, published originally in 1576, we find the 

 first attempt to classify plants according to their similar characters. In separate 

 books he deals with trees, shrubs, and under-shrubs, bulbous plants, sweet-smelling 

 flowers, scentless flowers, poisonous, narcotic, and acrid plants, with plants having a 

 milky juice, and with Umbellifers, Ferns, Grasses, Leguminosee, and certain Ciypto- 

 gamic plants. In those days some 4000 plants were distinguished by Botanists, 

 and the want of some system of classification was gradually felt. The groups 

 of Clusius and his contemporaries were inadequate, and the system of Cesalpino 

 (1519-1603), published in the first book of his De Plantis Libri XVI (1583), 

 failed to obtain the recognition it undoubtedly deserved — perhaps because it 

 was only sketched out in outline and lacked a full and detailed rendering. 

 Cesalpino was the first to convert observation into real scientific research; he 

 drew attention to the more hidden organs of plants, to the position of the seeds, 

 the number and mode of insertion of the cotyledons, &c., to the presence or absence 

 of flowers. 



It is to Tournefort (1656-1708), a Frenchman, that we owe the first complete 

 review of known plants in synoptical form. In his Institutiones Rei HerbaricB 

 (published 1700) 10,146 species of plants are distinguished and arranged in 698 

 genera, which again are assembled under 22 classes. Classes 1-15 include herbs 

 and under-shrubs, 16 and 17 flowerless plants (Cryptogams), and 18-22 shrubs 

 and trees. The herbs, shrubs, and trees are distinguished by the form of their 

 flowers, especial importance being attached to the presence of calyx and corolla, 

 to the regularity or irregularity of the flower, and to the petals — whether they 

 are free or united with one another. Not long afterwards Linnaeus produced 

 a classification of plants based on the distribution of the sexes, and especially upon 

 the number of the stamens in the flowers. The terms species and variety, genus 

 and class, were more clearly and intelligibly defined than heretofore, and his 1050 

 genera were included under the 24 classes already enumerated (p. 288). The 

 Linnean classification, known as the Sexual System, enjoyed an unprecedented 

 recognition. It constituted a well-arranged summary of a great mass of scattered 

 observations, and made it possible for species to be identified by means of concise 

 descriptions. It was not the fault of this accomplished and renowned naturalist 

 if a greater importance were attached to his system than he himself ever intended. 

 Linnaeus never regarded these 24 classes as real and natural branches of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and expressly says so; it was constructed for convenience of 

 reference and identification of species. A real natural system, founded on the 

 true affinities of plants as indicated by their structural characters, he regai-ded 



