172 



HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



pirical, and have no titie to be regarded as true 

 methods. Indeed, they were not at all founded 

 on the knowledge derived from characters pe- 

 culiiir to these objects individually, and which 

 might serve to distinguisli them from each other, 

 but rested merely upon some external circum- 

 stances, which were often foreign to the nature 

 of the object. Thus the alphabetical order in 

 which plants were arranged, could be of no ad- 

 vantage excepting to those who were already 

 acquainted with them, and were desirous of ex- 

 amining some of them more particularly. This 

 is equally the case with the arrangements founded 

 upon the economical or medicinal properties of 

 plants, which always suppose a previous know- 

 ledge of the virtues of the plants whose names 

 it is proposed to discover. 



It will easily be perceived that, upon such 

 foundation, there could only be raised classifi- 

 cations of the most defective character, as they 

 generally rested upon circumstances unconnected 

 with the nature and organization of plants. 

 They were, therefore, incapable of affording any 

 satisfactory idea of tliem. 



Experience, however, soon showed the neces- 

 sity of deriving the characters by which plants 

 might be made known and distinguished from 

 their own organization, and the parts of which 

 they are composed. From this period, botany 

 assumed the rank of a science ; for it was then 

 that the organization of plants began to be 

 studied, in order to educe from it the characters 

 by whicli these objects might be made known 

 and distinguished. 



Methods now began to assume a regular fonn. 

 But, as the organs of vegetables are numerous, 

 tiie number of methods became correspondingly 

 great, as each axithor imagined some one of the 

 former to supply the most solid foundation for 

 a good arrangement. Thus some of them 

 founded their methods on the consideration of 

 the roots, and of all the modifications which 

 tliese organs are capable of presenting; others 

 upon the stems ; some like savages, on the 

 leaves; others on the inflorescence. 



In the sixteenth century, Gessner, a native of 

 Zurich, first demonstrated that the characters 

 derived from the flower and fruit are the most 

 certain and the most important for obtaining 

 from them a good classification of plants. He 

 also showed the existence, among plants, of 

 groups, composed of several species, connected 

 by common characters. This first idea of 

 grouping vegetables into genera, had the greatest 

 influence upon the after progress of botany. 



Soon after, Caesalpinus, who was born in 1519, 

 at Arezzo, in Tuscany, presented the first model 

 of a botanical method. In it all the species 

 were arranged according to the consideration of 

 characters which may be derived from most of 

 the organs of plants, such as their duration, the 



presence or absence of the flowers, the position 

 of the seed, their adhesion to the c;ilyx, and the 

 number and situation of the cotyledons. The 

 invention of such a method, imperfect as it is, 

 must be considered as the first step towards the 

 discovery of a natural classification. 



The number of known vegetables, however, 

 was daily receiving augmentation from new dis- 

 coveries, and the works that existed were be- 

 coming more and more insufficient. Several 

 authors, among whom may be mentioned with 

 approbation the two brothei-s Bauhin, Ray, 

 Magnol, and Rivinus, successively gave proofs 

 of extraordinary merit in theii works. Some 

 of them even invented new methods, which, 

 however, were all eclipsed by that of Josepli 

 Pitton do Tournefort, whicli was published 

 about the end of the seventeenth century. 



That celebrated botanist, one of those whose 

 writings have most redounded to the honour of 

 his native country, vi'as born at Aix, in Provence, 

 on the 5th June 1G56. He was professor of 

 Botany at the Garden of Plants, in Paris, in 

 the reign of Louis XIV., who, in 1700, sent him 

 on an important mission to the Levant. Tour- 

 nefort, at that time, traversed Greece, the shores 

 of the Black sea, and the islands of the Archi- 

 pelago. He returned to Paris, and published an 

 account of his journey, which may be men- 

 tioned as one of the most perfect models of its 

 kind. Previous to his departure, he had already 

 promulgated, in a work entitled Institutions of 

 Botany, his new method, in which were des- 

 cribed 10,14G species, which were referred to 

 G98 genera. 



Tournefort's merit was not solely that of 

 having invented an ingenious method, in which 

 were described and arranged all the plants then 

 known. His principal title to fame is his hav- 

 ing been the first who distinguished, with more 

 strictness and precision than had previously 

 been done, the genera, the species, and the varie- 

 ties v^hich might be referred to them. 



Before his time the science was a mass of con- 

 fusion. The species were not clearly distin- 

 guished from those to which they were allied. 

 He first reduced the chaos of botany to order, 

 separated the genera and species by characteristic 

 phrases or definitions, and, by means of his in- 

 genious system, ari-anged all the plants thou 

 known in methodical array. 



After Tournefort appeared a great number of 

 botanists, who enjoyed a certain degree of repu- 

 tation. Some of them proposed new methods, 

 none of which, however, had the least tendency 

 to eclipse that of Tournefort. This glory seemed 

 reserved for the celebrated Linnaus, whose sys- 

 tem, wliich was published in 173+, had the most 

 surprising success, on account of its extreme sim- 

 jdicity, and the singular facility which itaflt)rda 

 for attaining a knowledge of the names of plants. 



