178 The Eoolution of Botany. 



gating and testing the teachings of the old scholars, which 

 practice brought to light and did away with many absurd 

 intrusions upon science, and, on the other hand, served to 

 widen scientific knowledge by the many new discoveries and 

 inventions it brought about. In his travels, in France and 

 Austria principally, Clusius was very successful in discover- 

 ing new plants, which, upon his return, he classified with 

 much labor, and described with more accuracy than had 

 theretofore been employed in the description of plants. He 

 published the results of his travels and succeeding labor in 

 several books, of which the Kariorum Plantarum Historia 

 contained most of the plants then known, with illustrations 

 of those he discovered. It was the best exposition of botany 

 in its time. Clusius also made an attempt at classification 

 among plants of his own discovery, but which was not of 

 much account. None of his contemporaries or predecessors 

 can record the discovery of a larger number of plants. 



Up to the first half of the seventeenth century only descrip- 

 tive botany had received attention, and the classification was 

 yet in a primitive condition. Of the structure of plants little 

 or nothing was known until the invention of the microscope, 

 which marked an important epoch in the development of the 

 sciences. Indeed, botany benefited more by the introduc- 

 tion of the microscope than any other science. The inven- 

 tion of the microscope not only induced the study of the 

 structure of plants, but was also an introduction to crypto- 

 gamous botany, the study of the flowerless plants, of which, 

 until then, practically nothing was known. In the same 

 degree in which the microscope was perfected did the 

 knowledge of plant anatomy, the study of the structure of 

 plants, increase. 



As the founders of plant anatomy we must recognize N. 

 Grew, Malpighi, and Leeuwenhoek, who simultaneously en- 

 tered upon microscopical investigations, the results of which 

 they published in 1670, 1671, and 1673, respectively, these 

 works being the first of their kind. Malpighi first employed 

 strong convex lenses, corresponding to our simple micro- 

 scope of about 180 magnifying powers, to examine into the 

 structure of human tissue. The experience he gained by 

 thus studying the tissue of the lungs, brain, kidneys, intes- 

 tines, and nerves, he applied vigorously to the establishment 

 of plant anatomy ; and his work Anatomica Plantarum may 

 be said to have been the basis for the future and more ex- 

 haustive work's by other authors. Nehemiah Grew also oc- 



