310 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



To the second of these two steps we have no 

 difficulty in assigning its proper author. It belongs 

 to Csesalpinus, and marks the first great epoch of 

 this science. It is less easy to state to what bo- 

 tanist is due the establishment of genera; yet 

 we may justly assign the greater part of the merit 

 of this invention, as is usually done, to Conrad 

 Gessner of Zurich. This eminent naturalist, after 

 publishing his great work on animals, died 3 of the 

 plague in 15C5, at the age of forty-nine, while he 

 was preparing to publish a History of Plants, a 

 sequel to his History of Animals. The fate of the 

 work thus left unfinished was remarkable. It fell 

 into the hands of his pupil, Gaspard Wolf, who was 

 to have published it, but wanting leisure for the 

 office, sold it to Joachim Camerarius, a physician 

 and botanist of Nuremberg, who made use of the 

 engravings prepared by Gessner, in an Epitome 

 which he published in 1586. The text of Gessner's 

 work, after passing through various hands, was pub- 

 lished in 1754 under the title of Gessneri Opera 

 Botanica per duo scecula desiderata, fyc., but is 

 very incomplete. 



The imperfect state in which Gessner left his 

 botanical labours makes it necessary to seek the 

 evidence of his peculiar views in scattered passages 

 of his correspondence and other works. One of his 

 great merits was, that he saw the peculiar import- 



2 Cuvier, Lemons sur flJist. des Sciences Nafitrclles, partic ii. 

 p. 193. 



