292 liiNN^us. 



lebrated scheme, it may be useful to take a brief 

 view of those by which it was preceded. It is ob- 

 vious, that without a methodical disposition of 

 plants, and a fixed nomenclature, it would be im- 

 possible for an individual to retain the knowledge 

 of the numerous and diversified forms which these 

 present. Descriptions, moreover, would be unin- 

 telligible, and we should find it difficult or imprac- 

 ticable to ascertain the species of which authors 

 might write. 



The alphabetical arrangement of plants, the most 

 artificial, or at least the most unnatural of all, was 

 at one time much followed by botanists, especially 

 in local catalogues. The time of flowering, the place 

 of growth, the general habit or appearance, and va- 

 rious other circumstances, formed a basis to other 

 arrangements. In the sixteenth century, Conrad 

 Gesner showed that the flower and fruit were the only 

 parts capable of affording determinate characters. 

 Caesalpinus, physician to Pope Clement VIII., pre- 

 sented the first model of a botanical system, in his 

 Ijibri de Flantis, published in 1583. The cha- 

 racters are derived principally from the fruit, 

 though likewise from the flowers, and the duration 

 of plants. The two Bauhins, Ray, and Morison, 

 published systems constructed on similar principles. 

 Others, as Rivinus and Ludwig, derived their cha- 

 racters from the corolla. All these methods, how- 

 ever, successively passed into neglect, and were su- 

 perseded by that of Tournefort, who was professor 

 of botany at the Garden of Plants in Paris, in the 

 reign of Louis XIV. This eminent writer was 

 the first who defined the species and genera with 

 any degree of precision. He arranged plants ac- 



