1 8 INTRODUCTION. 



Institu- at this period. The rapid progress of the study dis- 



tanical *~ pl avs itself also in the travels and voyages that were 



travels. undertaken for the purpose of new discovery ; of 



which I shall specify only the examples of Camera- 



rius of Nuernberg, Jungermannius his nephew, 



Prosper Alpinus, Rauwolfius, and the two Acostas, 



who travelled respectively over Italy, Greece, Egypt, 



the shores of the Levant, and lastly undertook 



voyages even to India in quest of plants. And hence 



And of also the origin of herbariums of dried plants for 



herbari- r , n j 



the purpose of preserving the specimens collected ; 



UH15. 



Introduc- which with the additional improvement of copper- 

 plate figures that were now for the first time intro- 

 duced i nto botany by Columna of Naples, gave a 

 facility and precision to botanical inquiry unattain- 

 able before. 



And bo- But the progress of botanical knowledge thus 

 gardens, promoted by the labours and investigations of the 

 learned, owed also much of its advancement to the 

 patronage of the rich and the great. This is particu- 

 larly evidenced in the institution of botanic gardens, 

 whether public or private, which history now intro- 

 duces for the first time, and which the Italians, eager 

 in the pursuit of new plants, were the first to es- 

 tablish. Of the former sort the most ancient is 

 thought to be that of Padua, instituted in J 533, and 

 soon after followed by those of Florence, Pisa, Bo- 

 logna, and Leyden ; and of the latter sort, perhaps, 

 the most ancient was that of William Landgrave of 

 Hesse, arranged as it is said by Camerarius, and 



