1(56 Natural History. [Chap. III. 



Kiiaiit, a German, who proposed what was after- 

 wards styled " the system of Rivinus inverted." 

 This plan was published, in 1716, under the title of 

 Methodus Plantarmn Genuina. It embraced seven- 

 teen classes, founded on the number of the petals 

 alone ; and one hundred and twenty-one orders, 

 distincfuished by the fruit. Knaut was followed 

 by Dr. Hales, before mentioned, whose celebrated 

 work on " Vegetable Statics'* threw much light 

 upon the physiology of plants, and indeed entitles 

 him to the honour of being considered the great 

 flither of this branch of botanical science. To Hales 

 succeeded Micheli, an Italian, whose Nova Genera 

 Planfarum must be ranked among the fundamental 

 works of the age, as it doubtless formed an impor- 

 tant step in the course of reformation and improve- 

 ment. Contemporary with Knaut, was Magnol, 

 a celebrated professor of botany at Montpellier, 

 whose system was published in \ V'^O. He divided the 

 vegetable kingdom into fifteen classes, which deriv- 

 t/d their characters entirely from ihe calyx; and these, 

 according to him, embraced fifty-five orders, whose 

 distinguishing characters were taken from ihe^figiire 

 of the calijx, petals, and seeds ; from the disposition 

 oi i\\e flowers ; from Xheniunher o^ petals ; and from 

 the substance of the fruit. In 1720, the same year 

 in which Magnol published his system, there w^as 

 another offered to the world by Julius Pontedera, 

 a nobleman of Pisa. He attempted to combine 

 the systems of Tournefort and liivinus. 



Such was' the state of botanical philosophy until 

 the year 1735; confused, intricate, unsettled, and 

 exhibiting little but successive revolutions. And, 

 if all the systems of classification were "\ague5- un- 



