EARLY CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS. 



through some of the regions of Asia and Africa which now acknowledge the 

 British sway; Meander of Colophon, Cato, Yarro, Columella, Virgil, Pedacius, 

 Dioscorides of Silicia, who followed the Roman armies in their expeditions during the 

 fourth century ; and, lastly, the elder Pliny. Up to this period, therefore, we owe our 

 knowledge of hotany to the Greeks and Romans ; and then, as now, war, notwith- 

 standing its desolation, was made to promote the interests of science. 



The Arabians, in the eleventh century, were the next cultivators of botany, as they 

 were the most learned people then existing. After them the darkness of the middle 

 ages set in, during which no science was cultivated, except by a monk, here and there, 

 secluded in his gloomy cloister ; and it was not until the rise of the illustrious Marco 

 Polo, of Venice, that the darkness became dispelled. He examined the treasures of 

 middle and southern Asia, and the eastern coasts of Africa, and described plants from 

 India and the Indian Ocean. From his days to the present the science has progressively 

 advanced ; first, in the addition to our knowledge of the names of plants, and, secondly, 

 of their structure and physiology. The Italians, and then the Germans, in the sixteenth 

 century, rendered good service to the science, as did also, at the same period, the Por- 

 tuguese by their conquests in India, and the Spaniards by their discovery of America. 

 From this and the succeeding century the science of botany, as it is now under- 

 stood, may fairly be dated ; since then, for the first time, an attempt was made to 

 classify the plants which had been discovered and named, and the microscope enabled 

 them to analyze the minute structures. Our own country now claims a distinguished 

 share in the honours of discovery. The Society of London for the Promotion of Science, 

 which was liberally supported by Charles the Second, gave much attention to the sub- 

 ject, and more particularly its secretary, Nehemiah Grew, who published his observa- 

 tions on the "Anatomy of Plants" in 1682. Another of our countrymen, Robert 

 Morison, Professor at Oxford, distinguished himself in the department of classification, by 

 the publication of various works, and especially of his " Historia Plantarum Universalis," 

 with plates, in 1715. He was quickly followed by a yet more distinguished man, 

 John Ray, an English clergyman, who enunciated the true principles of classification, 

 and demonstrated the sexual characters of plants. Dr. Hans Sloane, the President of 

 the Royal Society, who died in 1753, and John Parkinson, the Superintendent of the 

 Medical Botanical Garden at Chelsea, and several successors of the latter, were honour- 

 ably distinguished. 



We have not space to enumerate even the most distinguished names which have 

 adorned this science during the past two centuries. It must suffice to state that the 

 great Linnaeus, a native of Sweden, is by far the most eminent, and established the 

 sexual system which now bears his name. After him came De Saussure and Du 

 Hamel, Link, Rudolphi, Mirbel, Kieser, Schleiden, Darwin, and Quekett, in reference 

 to anatomy and physiology, and Jussieu, De Candolle, Robert Brown, Sowerby, Sir 

 J. E. Smith, Sir "W. Hooker, Sir J. Paxton, and Lindley, in reference to classification. 

 No country has a greater claim to boast of the advantages which it has rendered to 

 botanical science than our own. It has established the best botanical gardens, as the 

 Royal Gardens of Kew and of Hampton Court, and the Medical Botanical Gardens at 

 Chelsea ; and it has led the way in the investigation of minute structure. At the 

 present moment, it claims a multitude of most distinguished men labouring in one or 

 other of the departments of the same field. 



Definition of a Plant. Definitions are at all times difficult, and not the less so 

 that they appear easy. In this instance, as the three great kingdoms of nature pass 



