146 Plant Classification [ch. 



a synoptic table of species which precedes each more or 

 less natural group of plants. The superiority of his classifi- 

 cation to the other arrangements in the field at the time 

 was immediately realised. We have evidence of this in the 

 fact that, after his ' Kruydtbceck ' was published, Plantin 

 brought out an album of the wood-engravings used in the 

 book, which, although they had also appeared as illustra- 

 tions to the works of Dodoens and de l'Ecluse, were 

 now arranged as in the scheme put forward by de l'Obel, 

 "according to their genus and mutual relationship 1 ." 



There seems little doubt that de l'Obel made a more 

 conscious effort than any of his predecessors to arrive at 

 a natural classification, and that he realised that such a 

 classification would reveal a unity in all living beings. In 

 the preface to his ' Stirpium adversaria nova' of 1570 he 

 writes — " For thus in an order, than which nothing more 

 beautiful exists in the heavens or in the mind of a wise man, 

 things which are far and widely different become, as it were, 

 one thing." 



De rObel's scheme is not expressed in the clear manner 

 to which we have become accustomed in more modern 

 systems, because, in common with other botanists of his 

 time, he did not, as a rule, give names to the groups which 

 we now call orders, or draw any sharp line of distinction 

 between them. 



De rObel's arrangement, in spite of its good features, 

 had serious drawbacks. The anomalous Monocotyledons, 

 such as Arum, Tamus, Aloe and Ruscus, are scattered 

 among the Dicotyledons, while Drosera (the Sundew) 

 appears among the Ferns, and so on. Similarities of leaf 

 form, which are now regarded merely as instances of "homo- 

 plastic convergence," are responsible for many curious 

 groupings. For instance in the ■ Kruydtbceck ' we find 

 the Tway blade (Listerd), the May Lily (Maiantkemum) 

 and the Plantain (Plantago) described in succession, while, 

 in another part of the book, various Clovers {Trifolium), 

 Wood Sorrel {Oxalis) and Anemone hepatica are grouped 

 together. It is also not surprising that the Marsh Mari- 

 gold (Caltha), the Waterlilies (Nympk&a and Nuphar), 



1 "uti a D. Mathia Lobelio... singular videlicet congeneres ac sibi mutuo 

 affines, digestae sunt." Dedication to 'Plantarum seu stirpium icones,' 1581. 



