54 MEMOIR OF GESNER, 



Sucli was the extensive plan on which the work 

 was conceived. In prosecuting his task, we have 

 the high authority of Sir J. E. Smith for saying, 

 that he united the investigation of the external cha- 

 racter of plants with a careful study of the fructifi- 

 cation, the importance of which, as affording stable 

 and obvious characters for the distinction of species, 

 had been previously very little understood. In 

 many of his figures the parts of fructification are 

 delineated separately, as well as the root and other 

 important parts of structure. In letters to his cor- 

 respondents, he often tries to impress them with 

 the necessity of attending to such parts as yielding 

 the most valuable characters. The figures of the 

 plants are much more accurately executed than 

 those formerly spoken of as illustrating the History 

 of Animals. Many of them, in fact, are finished 

 with considerable delicacy ; they are highly charac- 

 teristic of the habit of the plant, and display no 

 small degree of freedom and skill in the drawing. 

 The fate of these excellent figures we cannot better 

 describe than in the words of Pulteney. * " It 

 forms," he says, " a mortifying but curious anec- 

 dote in the literary history of the science of botany. 

 Of the fifteen hundred figures left by Gesner, pre- 

 pared for his 6 History of Plants,' at his death, in 

 1 565, a large share passed into the Epitome Matthwli^ 

 published by Camerarius in 1586, which contained 

 in the whole a thousand and three figures ; and in 

 the same year, as also into a second edition in 1590, 

 * Sketches of Botany, vol. i. 



