CHAP, ii.] from Ccsalpino to Linnaeus. 69 



knew how to adopt all that was good and true in the works of 



his predecessors, and to criticise and complete them from his 



own observations, but could also joyfully acknowledge the 



services of others, and combine their results and his own into a 



harmonious whole. He wrote many botanical works ; but 



none display his character as a man and a naturalist better 



than his comprehensive ' Historia Plantarum,' published in 



three large folio volumes without plates in the period from 



1686 to 1704. This work contains a series of descriptions of 



all plants then known ; but the first volume commences with a 



general account of the science in fifty-eight pages, which, printed 



in ordinary size, would itself make a small volume, and which 



treats of the whole of theoretic botany in the style of a modern 



text-book. If morphology, anatomy, and physiology, in which 



latter subject he relies on the authority of Malpighi and Grew, 



are not kept strictly apart in his exposition, yet it is easy to 



separate the morphological part, and his theory of systematic 



botany is in fact given separately. Jung's definitions of the 



subject-matter of each of the chapters on morphology are first 



given, and Ray then adds his own remarks, in which he 



criticises, expands, and supplements those of his predecessor. 



Omitting all that is not his own, and the anatomical and 



physiological portions, we will describe some of the more 



important results of his studies on system. P'irst and foremost 



Ray adopted the idea which Grew had conceived, but in a very 



clumsy form, that difference of sex prevails in the vegetable 



kingdom, and hence the flower had a different meaning and 



importance for him from what it had had for his predecessors, 



though his views on the subject were still indistinct. Ray 



perceived more clearly than Cesalpino that many seeds contain 



not only an embryo but also a substance, which he calls ' pulpa ' 



or ' medulla,' and which is now known as the endosperm, and 



that the embryo has not always two cotyledons, but sometimes 



only one or none ; and though he was not quite clear as regards 



the distinction, which we now express by the words dicotyle- 



