BOTANY. 



31 



Hiitory. tircly the merit of an original discoverer in this 



^v" branch of physiology. He examined all that had 



been done before his time, detect' <l the truth, raised 



mosses from seed, and established their characters on 



the principles we have already explained." 



In this last branch of study, Hedwig was pre- 

 ceded by the celebrated Schreber, professor at Er- 

 langcn, whom we have more than once had occasion 

 to mention ; and he has been followed by Dickson, 

 Swartz, Weber, Turner, and one or two others, 

 whose researches have contributed, in no small de- 

 gree to enlarge the information which he left us with 

 respect to it. The person, however, who has distin- 

 guished himself most as his follower, is Samuel Elias 

 ridel. Bridel, a native of the canton of Bern, in Switzer- 

 land, who, within these few years, began to publish 

 an elaborate work, embracing a full analysis, history, 

 and systematical description, of all the mosses hither- 



to known. How far he has been able to carry it we 

 have not yet learned ; but from the character which 

 he bears as an experienced muscologist, and the de- 

 gree of labour which he has bestowed on the subject, 

 we may naturally infer, that it will be a valuable pre- 

 sent to those who are conversant with this highly 

 interesting and curious tribe of vegetables. The 

 title under which it appears, is, Mutoofogia Recentio- 

 ; sen analysis, liistnria, et descriptio methudica 

 omnium muscorum frondosorum fiuaistjue cognitorum, 

 ad nnrmam Hedn->^ii. 



The filices or ferns, again, are another family of 

 Gryptogamic plants to which a good deal of attention 

 has been paid during this period. And although the 

 peculiar parts of the fructification are still almost en- 

 tirely unknown, we have the satisfaction of thinking, 

 that the inquiries of Hedwig, Bolton, Hoffman, Schra- 

 der, Smith, Lindsay, and others, have had the effect 

 of placing the subject in other respects in- a much 

 fuller and more- interesting light. Dr Smith, in par- 

 ticular, has employed his eminent experience and sa- 

 gacity in fixing the genera of the ferns on more ob- 

 vious and distinctive characters than heretofore ; and, 

 by doing so, he.has not only performed a great ser- 

 vice to this department of botany, but added much 

 to the well-earned fame which he has otherwise secu- 

 red to himself. 



With respect to the algce, or flag tribe, we may 

 observe, that a good deal was done towards illustra- 

 ting that subdivision of them called the Fuci, by Sa- 

 Gme- muel Gottlieb Gmelin, professor of botany at Peters- 

 burgh, and member of the Academy of Sciences al- 

 ready mentioned, who published a valuable work on 

 the subject in 1768; and mere recently by Stack- 

 house, Esper, Velley, Woodward, Goodenough, and 

 Turner ; but particularly by the last gentleman, who 

 has for a considerable time been engaged, with his 

 friend Mr Hooker, in preparing a history of this 

 genus, in which " a more perfect combination of the 

 skill of the painter and the botanist" is meant to be 

 exhibited, than in any which has been hitherto pub- 

 lished. The uh-ne and conferva;, two other genera of 

 the -submersed atgtc, have not received the same de- 

 gree of attention, but yet they have not been over- 

 looked, as will be evident to any one on referring to 

 what has been writte:; with respect to them", either 

 in the form of communications to periodical works, 

 or ia separate treatises by Mayer, Olivi, Muller, 



Stackhouse, Woodword, Roth, Vauchcr, and others. HMo-y. 

 Woodward, in particular, has lately written on the ' v ' 

 generic characters of nha, in a paper inserted in the 

 third volume of the Linmeuit 'fnauattwru ; and 

 Vaucher, an ingenious naturalist of Geneva, besides Vaucher: 

 paying much attention to the whole genus confer, 

 va, has lately, as one result of his labours, favour- 

 ed the public with an elaborate and faithful micros- 

 copical work on fresh water confervas. And to say 

 nothing of the hepaticcc, or liverworts, which Dr 

 Smith considers as a distinct order, and, not with 

 Linnasus, as a subdivision of the Alga: ; the researches 

 of Willdenow, Smith, Davies, and Persoon, but par- 

 ticularly of Dr George Francis Hoffman, formerly Hoffinan. 

 professor at Erlangen, and now at Gottingen, au- 

 thor of the Enumeratio Lichenum, and Plant ee Li- 

 chcnosfe, whom we have already mentioned, and of 

 Dr Erick Acharius, a Swedish botanist, of much in- Acharius. 

 genuity and learning, have contributed not a little to 

 enlarge our acquaintance with the Lichens. The 

 whole family, indeed, has been much investigated, 

 and, to use the words of Dr Smith, " has been at- 

 tempted to be divided into natural genera founded on 

 habit, by Dr Hoffman, whose figures are perfect in 

 their kind. But a more complete scheme for re- 

 ducing this family to systematic order has been re- 

 cently made known to the world by Dr Acharius, 

 who, in his Prodromus, and Mcthodus Lichenum, 

 has divided it into genera founded in the receptacle 

 of the seeds alone. Hence those genera, though 

 more technical, are less natural than Hoffman's; but 

 they will, most likely, prove the foundation of all 

 that can in future be done on the subject, and the 

 works of Acharius form a new asra in Cryptogamic 

 Botany." 



Nor have the fungi or mushroom tribe been over- 

 looked as a subject of investigation. Hedwig, as we 

 have already hinted, detected their seeds, and shewed 

 them to be of a vegetable nature ; a line of inquiry in 

 which he has been successfully followed by the late 

 Jonas Dryander, a Swedish botanist, who lived with 

 Sir J. Banks. Splendid and accurate works, illustra- 

 tive of this order, have also been given to the world 

 by Schxffer, Bulliard, and our highly meritorious 

 countryman Sowerby; and of late Persoon, a native Pef soon, 

 of the Cape of Good Hope, who is now resident at 

 Gottingen, has pre-eminently distinguished himself 

 by introducing a new and more scientilie plan of ar- 

 rangement in his Synopsis Methodica Fungorum. 

 His merits in this department are also considerable in 

 other respects ; and we have reason to expect that 

 his future researches will continue to throw a still 

 more extensive and satisfying light on the subject. 



It seems only farther necessary to the completion 

 of our design, in this historical account, that we 

 should mention a few of those who have contributed 

 most essentially during the period we are speaking 

 of, to advance the interests of the science by their 

 miscellaneous writii.gs, that is, writings, in which 

 they have described such unknown or hitherto ill 

 characterised plants, of different countries, and be- 

 longing to different classes, as they have anywise pro- 

 cured, or had an opportunity of examining. 



And in following the order of time, we may here par- MiscelU- 

 ticulanse, among several others of inferior note, the neous wn- 

 pelebrated Jacquiu, who has, added, in a very eminent ters ' 



