Chap, i.] from Brunfels to Kaspar Bauhin. 



first and for that time a completely exhaustive book of syno- 

 nyms, and is still indispensable for the history of individual 

 species — no small praise to be given to a work that is more 

 than 250 years old. 



It would not have been unsuitable to the purpose of the 

 author of the ' Pinax,' if he had allowed himself to give the 

 plants in alphabetical order, but instead of this we find a care- 

 ful arrangement according to natural affinities. This directly 

 proves what is also confirmed by the ' Prodromus,' that Bauhin 

 regarded such an arrangement as of the greatest importance. 

 In this point, as in others, he goes far beyond his predecessors ; 

 he pursues the same method as de l'Obel had pursued forty 

 years before, but he carries it out more thoroughly. At the 

 same time he shares with his predecessors the peculiarity of 

 not distinguishing the larger groups, which with some excep- 

 tions answer to our present families, by special names or by 

 descriptions; it is only from the order in which the species 

 follow one another that we can gather his views on natural 

 relationship. It follows therefore that the natural families, so 

 far as they are distinguishable in Bauhin's works, have no sharp 

 bounding lines ; we might almost conclude that he purposely 

 avoided assigning such limits, that he might be able to pass 

 without interruption from one chain of relationship to another. 



Like de l'Obel, Bauhin proceeds in his enumeration from the 

 supposed most imperfect to the more perfect forms, beginning 

 with the Grasses and the majority of Liliaceae and Zingibe- 

 raceae, passing on to dicotyledonous herbs, and ending with 

 shrubs and trees. 



The Cryptogams that were known to him stand in the middle 

 of the series of dicotyledonous herbs, between the Papiliona- 

 ceae and the Thistles, the Equisetaceae being reckoned among 

 the Grasses. On the great distinction between Cryptogams 

 and Phanerogams the views of Bauhin were evidently less 

 clear than those of many of his predecessors ; but it will not 

 seem strange that he should place some Phanerogams, as for 



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