CHAPTER XIII 



BOTANY IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY : 

 PETER COLLINSON, JOHN BARTRAM 



How ravishing to see the swelling buds disclose the tender leaves ! 

 PETER COLLINSON. 



I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the joinery of the stars, and 

 the running blackberry would adorn the parlours of heaven. WALT 



WHITMAN. 



The trees, 



Midsummer-manifold, each one 

 Voluminous, a labyrinth of life. 



W. E. HENLEY. 



If seas and mountains can keep us asunder here, yet surely the 

 Father of Wisdom and Science will take away that veil and these 

 obstacles when this curtain of mortality drops ; and probably I may 

 find myself on the skirts of a meadow, where Linnaeus is explaining the 

 wonders of a new world to legions of white candid spirits, glorifying 

 their Maker for the amazing enlargement of their mental faculties. 

 Dr. GARDEN, Letter to Linnesus, 1761. 



THE science of botany was growing fast in the first half 

 of the eighteenth century. Our English Ray amongst 

 others had brought to bear upon the vegetable as well 

 as upon the animal world his talents of close observation 

 and methodical description. Herbariums of dried plants 

 were often collected, and the products of other climes 

 were brought home by sailors. The day of mere marvels 

 was past ; when Gerard could portray in his admirable 

 herbal the barnacle tree shedding its fruit of living birds 

 into the waters, hence the name of " barnacle geese " ; 

 or Josselyn relate that in America barley " commonly 

 degenerates into oats " ; or the learned Grew tell of 

 mineral salts derived from plants crystallising out into some 



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