b THE BOTANISTS OF PHILADELPHIA. 



to have used the Liniuean system in the study of plants. 

 Dr. Benjamin Franklin introduced Bartram to European 

 botanists, among them Doctor Gronovius, Avho presented the 

 Quaker botanist with Linnaeus's Systema Naturae of 1740.* 

 The overwhelming influence of the great Linnaeus gave to 

 the botany of the eighteenth century an almost exclusively 

 systematic and descriptive character. Linnaeus was the 

 author of the binomial system of nomenclature of plants 

 and animals, which still goes back to his work as its basis, 

 and of the artificial " sexual system " of classification 

 based on the stamens and pistils of the flowering plants, 

 whose functions, as reproductive organs, were already 

 realized. The order Avhich he brought out of the chaos of 

 descri^Dtive natural history was a blessing so unalloyed, 

 and his system was so simple and seductive, that it was 

 many years before most botanists again began to realize 

 that their science properly comprehends other problems 

 than those involved in naming and pigeon-holing plants. 



It was while the LinuEean enthusiasm was at its height 

 that the first Philadelphia botanists ajDpeared on the scene. 



In the year 1748, Peter Kalm, a Swedish naturalist, and 

 pupil of Linnaeus, visited Pennsylvania and spent three 

 3' ears in exploring America, and in 1753 published his 

 travels.f Doctor Adam Kuhn, of Philadelphia, was prolja- 



*1740. LiXN-EUS — Systema naiurce, in quo naturce regna trio, secundum 

 classes, ordines, genera, species systematice proponuntur EdiLio JIauctior. 8tock- 

 holmice, Gottfr. Kiesewetter. 



Bartram's copy of this book is in possession of the Pennsylvania Historical 

 Society ; on the title page is the writing : 



"John Bartram His booke sent to him by Dr. Gronovius in ye year 174(5." 



That it is authentic is shown by the following, also written in the book: "I 

 bought this book June 14, 1853, at the sale at Mackey's of Books of Col. Carr, who 

 married Bartram's grand-daughter." E. D. Ingraham. '•! bought this book March 

 20, 1855, at the sale of Mr. Ingraham's Library by M. Thomas & Sons." A. Day. 



11753-61. P. Kalm— £■« Resa til Norra America. Stockholm, III vols. 



1754-64. KAhyi—Besch7-eibung der Reise nach dem nordlichen Arne/ika. 

 Gottingen. 3 Theile (German translation). 



