B O T A N Y. 



In Den- 

 mark. 



History, descriptions are illustrated with very accurate and ncat- 

 % "\t" ' ly coloured figures, engraved by Sowerby. The 

 second, which appears under the name of Flora Bri- 

 tanica, and was published in 1800 and 1804, in 3 

 vols Svo, is an edition of the preceding work translated 

 into Latin, without the plates, but improved and ex- 

 ecuted in ^uch a manner as to merit the highest 

 praise, and to render it, deservedly, the text-book of 

 British indigenous botany. 



la Sweden. The plants of Lapland and Sweden had been al- 

 ready pretty fully described by Linnaeus himself, in 

 the Flora Lapponica and the Flora Suecica ; and, of 

 course, it is the less necessary to say any thing of 

 Kalm, Libjeblad, and others, who have gleaned af- 

 ter him in the same field of discovery. This si.hject, 

 however, has been recently illustrated in the Suentk 

 botanik, utgiven of 3. W. Palmstruch, wed text for- 

 fatted afC. Quensel. Stockholm, 18021804. 



In Denmark, however, the Flora Danica, a splen- 

 did national work, patronized by the king, which is 

 meant to contain descriptions of all the plants grow- 

 ing in that country, illustrated by accurate and high- 

 ly finished plates, was set on foot in 1766, by George 

 Christian Oeder, at that time professor of botany at 

 Copenhagen.. After his death, it was continued by 

 the famous zoologist Otto Frederick Muller, and is 

 now under the superintendence of Professor Vahl. 

 Upwards of seven volumes of it, containing more 

 than 1200 plates, are at present before the public. 

 In the mean time, the botany of those parts of the 

 Danish empire which come more remotely within the 

 scope of the Flora Danica, was not neglected ; fqr 

 the province ef Norway was pretty fully explored, 

 and an account of its flora given to the public by 

 John Ernest Gunner, bishop of Drontheim, in his 

 Flora Norvegica. John Zoega, and the above-men- 

 tioned Frederick Muller, wrote on the plants grow- 

 ing spontaneously in Iceland. John Christian Daniel 

 Schreber, a favourite pupil of Linnaeus, professor at 

 Erlungen, and president of the Imperial Academy of 

 the Nature Curiosorum, who has otherwise acquired 

 great fame by his botanical writings, and Christian 

 Friis Rottboll, late professor of botany at Copenha- 

 gen, treated of those of Greenland ; and a few others 

 who might be named, though of less note, contribu- 

 ted, in different ways, to advance the same general 

 object by their individual exe. tion : their merits, 

 however, we cannot stop to particularise. 



With respect to the Russian dominions in Europe, 

 something had been done, in the early part of this pe- 

 riod, towards illustrating the botany of the south- 

 western provinces, by De Gorter and Gilibert. The 

 former published a Flora of Ingria, taken chiefly 

 from the manuscripts of Stephen Krascheninmikow, 

 in 1761 ; the latter, some years afterwards, a Flora 

 of Lithuania. The researches of Samuel Gottlieb 

 Gmelin, already mentioned, who travelled for a con- 

 8iderab!e time at the cx P ens e of the late empress, but 

 died unfortunately in 1774, while a prisoner with 

 the Cham of the Chaitakkes, just before he was to 

 have been ransomed ; and more recently those of Pe- 

 ter Simon Pallas, knight of the order of Vladimir, 

 and member of the Imperial Academy of Science, 

 the celebrated author of the Flora Rossica, who also 

 travelled long and extensively through the Russian 



In Russia. 



Gilibert. 



s. G. Gme- 

 * 





empire, both in Europe and Asia, at the expense of History, 

 the empress, contributed much to throw light en the ' "V 

 nature of the vegetable kingdom in some other parts ; 

 and, within these eighteen years, the plants growing 

 round Moscow, have been very accurately enumera- 

 ted and described by Professor Stephan. Much, Stephan. 

 however, still remains to be done, in the w:iy of ex- 

 ploring the Alpine ridges, dreary plain",, and exten- 

 sive forests, of this immense tract of country ; and 

 many years may yet be supposed to pass away, be- 

 fore we can expect to gain that accurate and satisfy- 

 ing knowledge of its productions, which is so much 

 an object of desire with the naturalist. 



With respect to the Prussian dominions, it is only i n Prussi^. 

 necessary to state, that a concise, but well-executed 

 enumeration and description of the plants growing in 

 that part ofthem, properly called Prussia, w?.s published 

 by John Christopher Wulff, in ) 76'5, under the title of 

 Flora Borrussica ; that a good deal of attention was 

 paid to the plants of Silesia by Henry Von Mattuschka In Silesia. 

 and Anthony John Krocker ; both of whom favour- 

 ed the public with a Flora Selisiaca, the former in, 

 17767, and the latter between the years 1787 and 

 1790 : and that a pretty good idea of the vegetable 

 kingdom in the neighbourhood of Berlin, has been 

 also given us by WiHdenow, the present able and dis- 

 tinguished professor of botany in that city, in his 

 Flora; Berolincnsis Prodromus. We may at the 

 same time remark, that the botany of the ancient 

 principalities of Bohemia and Hungary, though it 

 may not yet have received that degree of attention 

 which it merits, has not been neglected : For Schmidt, 

 late professor at Prague, has within these few years 

 been engaged in publishing a valuable Flora of the 

 one, though, we fear, he has not lived to complete it ; 

 while Foldi and Lumnitzer have been furnishing us 

 with some less general, but very acceptable, views 

 of the botany of the other. ' 



It was, however, in Germany, properly so called, In Germa. 

 that the interests of indigenous botany were more ny. 

 eminently promoted during the period we are- treat- 

 ing of. And this, as in other cases of the same na- 

 ture, was the result of the combined exertions of 

 local as well as general writers. The skill and indus- 

 try of the former, became early conspicuous. For 

 in 1750, George Rudolph Boehmer, professor at 

 Wittenberg, published an account of the plants 

 growing naturally in the country round Leipsic ; a 

 field of observation in which he was ably followed 

 some years afterwards by the celebrated Schreber, 

 and still more recently by C. G. Baumgarten. A 

 Flora of the province of Carniola was likewise given 

 to the world in 1760, by John Anthony Scopoli, a 

 self-taught botanist of great fame, who was succes- 

 sively professor at Schemnitz and Pavia ; and this, we 

 may add, besides being very much improved and aug- 

 mented in a secoiui edition in 1772, has, since that time, 

 been rendered still more complete, by the publication 

 of what may be naturally enough viewed as a supple- 

 ment to it, The Flora Alpines Carniolce of Hacquet. 

 In 1769, on the other hand, a work of considerable 

 merit on the vegetable productions of Austria, which 

 had been some time in a course of publication, was 

 completed by Henry J. N. Crantz, professor of me- 

 dicine and botany at Vienna : and four years after- 



