chap, ii.] from Cesalpino to Linnaeus. 39 



single districts. This gave rise to the first local floras (the 

 word flora, however, was first introduced by Linnaeus in the 

 next century), and of these Germany especially soon produced 

 a considerable number ; a flora of Altorf was published by 

 Ludwig Jungermann in 16 15, of Ingolstadt by Albert Menzel 

 in 16 18, of Giessen by Jungermann in 1623, of Dantzic by 

 Nicolaus Oelhafen in 1643, of Halle by Carl Scheffer in 1662, 

 of the Palatinate by Frank von Frankenau in 1680, of Leipsic 

 by Paul Ammann in 1675, of Nuremberg by J. Z. Volkamer in 

 1700. 



But though travel, catalogues in local floras, and the cultiva- 

 tion of plants in botanic gardens promote knowledge of very 

 varied kind, yet this remains scattered about among descrip- 

 tions of plants, until at last a writer with powers of combination 

 and wider and deeper glance endeavours to gain some general 

 conclusions from them. Such attempts we first meet with late 

 in the second half of the 17th century in Morison, Ray, 

 Bachmann (Rivinus), Toumefort, and others, who took up 

 Cesalpino's principles after they had lain neglected for almost 

 a hundred years, and indeed were almost forgotten by botanists. 

 In the dearth of higher scientific efforts during this period, 

 the describing of plants and cataloguing of species prolonged 

 a somewhat pitiful existence. This describing, a work of great 

 usefulness in the fathers of German botany, was now become 

 by perpetual repetition a mechanical labour ; all that was to be 

 gained in this way had already been gained by de l'Obei and 

 Bauhin. This sterility which followed upon the fruitful 

 beginnings of the 16th century was general ; neither in Ger- 

 many nor Italy, neither in France nor England, did the 

 botanists produce anything of importance. The representa- 

 tives of the science did not count among the more highly 

 gifted or among the thinkers of their time ; and so content 

 with the minor work of collecting and cataloguing plants, and 

 with endeavouring to know all plants as far as possible by- 

 name, they lost whatever capacity they may have possessed for 



