34 THE NEW BIOLOGY 



L'Obel makes a distinct advance upon the systems of 

 earlier botanists. Not content with tacitly adopting 

 what he took to be a natural sequence, like the early 

 German botanists, he enumerates in synoptic tables the 

 species of one genus, or the genera of one family. His 

 primary division is the ancient one into trees and herbs ; 

 then the herbs are divided according to the form of the 

 leaves. Division into Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons 

 is foreshadowed by the separation of plants with narrow, 

 simple, parallel- veined leaves from those with broad, 

 reticulate-veined and incised leaves. His system is 

 really based on leaf-form, and he unites clover, oxalis 

 and hepatica merely because all have trifoliate leaves. 

 He sought to proceed from the simple to the complex, 

 and for this reason among others .began with the grasses, 

 which he took to be flowering plants of peculiarly simple 

 structure. From the grasses he went on to irids, lilies, 

 &c., being guided, as he says, chiefly by the pointed and 

 simple leaves. Alisma, Sagittaria, some Orchids, &c. 

 are widely separated on account of their broad leaves. 

 The cereal grasses lead in another direction to the 

 Crucifers ; here the point of resemblance is suitability 

 for human food. Cabbages are associated with lettuces, 

 which are of like habit and "fruitio," while both are used 

 in cookery. 



Though the shrubs and trees are recognised as distinct 

 groups, the shrubby Leguminosse are laudably, but incon- 

 sistently, put next to the herbaceous genera. The ferns, 

 even such unusual forms as moon wort and adder's tongue, 

 are kept together. 



L'Obel's works show an extensive acquaintance with 

 the rare plants of Europe, such as Pyrola, which he had 

 found at Berchem near Antwerp, Cypripedium Calceolus 

 from Switzerland and Tyrol, and many more from 



