186 The Evolution of Botany. 



spicuous in its lack of adaptiveness. Gartner, too, scored 

 as his reward for his labors a signal failure in his attempt 

 at classification, in which he employed the fruit and seed. 

 The value of this system was not in the system itself, but 

 in its contribution to the development of the morphology 

 (form) of the fruit and seed. Gartner distinguished with 

 much clearness and accuracy between the spores of the 

 cryptogams and the seeds of the phanerogams, and advanced 

 a theory regarding the seed which was very comprehensive 

 and with which we are all familiar. 



The first successful attempt at a natural classification was 

 made by Antoine Laurent de Jussieu (1789), but his system 

 did not receive recognition at once ; it was thirty years after 

 that botanists began to appreciate its value. Among its ad- 

 vocates was Pyramus de Caudolle (1813),- who, though accept- 

 ing all of Jussieu's arrangement, advanced many new ideas 

 which he embodied with Jussieu's plan. De Candolle was 

 a systematize!' not surpassed by any of his predecessors or 

 successors. He developed the theory and laws of our pres- 

 ent natural system largely with much clearness and detail. 

 He built not alone upon Jussieu's work, but based many of 

 his ideas and views upon his own investigations of the mor- 

 phology of plants, which, in doing much in aiding the 

 natural arrangement, also became very fruitful to systematic 

 botany. He first established the teaching of the nature of 

 the abortive and rudimentary organs and applied the correct 

 evolutionary meaning to them, recognizing also the tran- 

 sition of the organs into each other. He noticed, for in- 

 stance, that in the lily there is very often such a transition 

 between the calyx and corolla, or between the corolla and 

 stamens, that it is difficult to tell to which set of organs a 

 particular one belongs. In the best of his several works 

 Kegni Vegetabilis Systema Naturale De Candolle arranged 

 all the phanerogamic plants according to his system, and de- 

 scribed all genera and species then known. ' In plant physi- 

 ology and geographical botany his works are conspicuous. 



Besides Jussieu and De Candolle, there were others who 

 endeavored to institute natural systems ; among them were 

 Oken, Lindley, Reichenbach, and Endlicher. The latter, in 

 1838, was especially successful in determining the natural 

 families. 



The proper system of classification was now arrived at, 

 and, while its development and application were progressing, 

 descriptive botany, too, was rapidly advancing. The floras 



