Book I. THE STUDY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



121 



The structure of plants, and the phenomena qf vegetable life, began to attract attention in the seventeenth 

 century, 2000 years after it had been first attempted by Theophrastus. Malpighi, an Italian, and Grew 

 an Englishman, carried on this study at the same time, unknown to each other ; the result of their inves! 

 tigations was communicated to the scientific world, towards the end of the seventeenth centurv, remov- 

 ing in great part the veil which had hitherto enveloped the phenomena of vegetation. The plan which 

 these philosophers pursued, was that of experiment recommended by Bacon ; the result may be men- 

 tioned as the first fruits of his philosophy. 



548. About the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth century, different 

 methods or systems for arranging and naming plants were produced by Hermann and 

 Boerhaave, of Leyden ; Rivinus and others, in Germany; Tournefort and 3Iagnol, in 

 France ; and Morison and Ray, in England. Of these systems and nomenclatures, 

 that of Tournefort was the most generally followed, of which we may give, as an instance, 

 the first six editions of Miller's Gardener's and Botanist's Dictionary. Tournefort's 

 system depended chiefly on the corolla; but, when the knowledge of plants became 

 more extensive, it was found impracticable in its application. All the other methods 

 were in different degrees defective, and it was not till the appearance of Linnaeus that 

 this perplexity was removed. 



549. Linnaeus founded what is called the sexual system, deducing his rules of method 

 from incontrovertible principles ; establishing, in his Philosophica Botanica, laws oi 

 generic and specific distinction, and rules of legitimate definition. This simplicity of 

 system, perspicuity of arrangement, and precision of language, has elevated botany to 

 the high rank it now holds in the scale of human science ; allured to the study of plants 

 men of the most distinguished abilities ; and excited that ardor for botanical investigation 

 which characterises the present age. This new system, as founded on the sexes of plants, 

 naturally led Linnaeus to the study of the structure and phenomena of vegetables, and 

 this effected at last a close and intimate union between systematic and physiological 

 botany. The propriety and advantage of this union are evident, since a thorough know- 

 ledge of plants involves both studies. The doctrines of Linnaeus soon procured fol- 

 lowers in every country ; but the most distinguished of his immediate disciples, were 

 Kalm, Hasselquist, Laefling, and Koenig, all of whom travelled in pursuit of new plants, 

 under the auspices of their great master. Of his more remote disciples, may be named 

 as most distinguished, Gmelin, Oeder, Hedwig, Gaertner, Lamarck, and Sir James 

 Edward Smith, the founder and president of the Linnaean Society of London, and pro- 

 prietor of the whole of the Linnaean Herbarium ; from whose meritorious labors, botany 

 has derived and is still deriving important advantages. 



The study of physiological botany, however, was less attended to than that of methodical arrangement 

 by Linnaeus and his immediate disciples ; and indeed, it would have been too much to have expected an 

 equal progress in both, by him who had made so astonishing an improvement in the one department To 

 the names of Grew and Malpighi, in physiological botany, may be added, in addition to that of Linnaeus, 

 Hales, Bonnet, Du Hamel, Hedwig, Spallanzani, and especially Priestley. This philosopher first brought 

 the aid of pneumatic chemistry to this study, which, under the direction of such men as Ingenhouz, 

 Senebier, andSaussure.has done more to illustrate the phenomena of vegetation, than all the other means 

 of investigation put together. If we add to these the ingenious hints and speculations of Darwin, in his 

 Botanic Garden, and in Phytologia ; the masterly experiments of Knight, given in the Philosophical 

 Transactions ; the vegetable physiology of Mirbel and Reiser ; with the systematic view of the whole sub- 

 ject by Keith, in his Introduction to' Vegetable Physiology ; we may assert with the latter writer, 

 " that our knowledge of the physiology of vegetables, may now be regarded as resting upon the foundation 

 of a body of the most incontrovertible "facts, and assuming a degree of importance inferior only to that of 

 the phys'iology of animals." Such may be considered the present state of physiological botany. 



550. The chief improvement which has been made in the systematic department since the 

 days of Linnceus, consists in the approximations that have been made to a method of ar- 

 rangement, founded on a more extended view of the relations of plants than is taken 

 in the Linnaean, or artificial system. By this system, which is designated natural, as 

 founded on the whole of the natural properties of the plant, the vegetable kingdom is thrown 

 into groups, and whoever knows any one plant in that group, will have some general idea 

 of the appearance and qualities of the whole. The use of such a classification for such as 

 already know plants individually, is therefore obviously great, though for discovering the 

 names of particular species, it is in its present state less convenient than the Linnaean sys- 

 tem, for owing to the small number of plants which are yet known to botanists, the groups 

 or classes of the natural method are far from being perfect. 



551. The first scheme for a natural method of arranging plants was communicated to the 

 public by Linnaeus in his Fragments of a Natural Method, published in 1738. The next 

 person who successfully traced the affinities of plants, was B. Jussieu, of Paris. In 1 759, 

 he displayed his method in the arrangement of the plants in the royal gardens of Trianon, 

 near Paris. Afterwards, Michael Adanson, a pupil of Jussieu, who had travelled through 

 part of Africa, examined all the published systems, and paid the greatest attention to the 

 natural affinities of vegetables, published a very learned and useful work, Families des 

 Plantes, in 1763. But it is to A. L. Jussieu, of the National Institute, nephew of the 

 elder Jussieu, that the science of natural affinities owes most ; and his Genera Plantarum, 

 published in 1789, is considered "the most learned botanical work that has appeared since 

 the Species Plantarum of Linnaeus, and the most useful to those who study the philosophy 



