24 INTRODUCTION. 



plants under the auspices of their great master. And 

 of his succeeding followers or more remote disciples, 

 the most distinguished are Gmelin, Oeder, Hedwig, 

 Gaertner, Lamark, and as the last I shall now 

 specify, though not the least in merit of the six, Sir 

 James Edward Smith, the founder and president of 

 the Linnaean Society of London, and proprietor of 

 the whole of the Linnaean Herbarium ; from whose 

 unremitted and meritorious labours, botany has de- 

 rived the most important advantages. 



Who ex- But the labours of Linnaeus were not confined 

 researches merely to the improvement of systematic botany, 

 tophyto- w h e ther according to natural or artificial principles, 

 and to the fixing of the laws of generic and specific 

 discrimination and definition ; but the very founda- 

 tion of his artificial system, and grand anchor of its 

 stability, involves one of the most important ques- 

 tions in the whole extent of physiological botany 

 namely, that of the sexes of plants. This doctrine 

 which had been recognized by the ancients, at least 

 as applicable to some plants, extended by Caesalpi- 

 nus to all diaecious plants, and suspected by Grew 

 to be true with regard to all plants whatever, had 

 not yet been put to the test of due experiment. 

 Some experiments had indeed been instituted with 

 a view to ascertain the fact ; first, by Camerarius, 

 professor at Tubingen, and afterwards by Vaillant, 

 which tended to throw considerable light upon the 

 subject. But the doctrine was still involved in 

 doubt, and the decision of the question was reserved 



3 



