SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 205 



according to some real likeness in the fruit or flower, and not 

 merely from similarity of habit or place of growth. Morison 

 divided herbaceous plants into fifteen classes; Ray into twenty- 

 five, and trees and shrubs into eight. These systems, which 

 paved the way, so to speak, for Jussieu, Robert Brown, and 

 others, came at a time when they were most needed. From East 

 and West, from the Old World and from the New, plants were 

 pouring in yearly in increasing numbers ; and the necessity of 

 arranging these newly-acquired treasures, was the foremost task 

 of Botanists. 



