PRESIDENT S ADDRESS. IX 



thera. and with an occasional student who refers to them, but 

 there is much diversified reading in these two volumes, as well 

 as solid information, and tliey reflect great credit upon the 

 troublous times in which they were issued. With them it may 

 be said that the age of Dioscorides closes. 



Up to this time very little system or arrangement is to be 

 found in botanical works. Certain plants were so naturally 

 and obviously associated that they were placed together, but 

 beyond this there was not much attempt at order. The names 

 of plants were also variable and unsettled ; sometimes a species 

 had only one name ; occasionally they were numbered as 

 Brassica pnnia, B. secunda, B. tertin, B. qwirta, whilst often the 

 name became quite a description, as Uhnjmnthemum majus, 

 folio valde laciniato, H'H'e croceo, (Anthemis tinctoria, L.) 

 Under these circumstances, the identification of specimens must 

 have been difficult. 



An English Botanist has the honour of proposing the first 

 important step in the classification of plants. John Ray, the 

 originator of the natural system of classification, published his 

 Methodns Flantanuii Nuva in 1682. He instituted two great 

 divisions of plants, namely, flowering plants, and plants that 

 were flowerless, as ferns, mosses, lichens, &c. The flowering 

 plants he again divided into Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons. 

 For the benefit of my non-Botanical hearers I may say that 

 the foimer are plants with one seed leaf, the latter with two. 

 The young mustard plant when brought to table has two, and 

 all grasses, oats, and barley, &c., only one. These differences 

 may appear trivial, but they are accompanied by a totally 

 different stnictiu'e of stem, leaves, and flowers. Many of Eay's 

 fm'ther groupings were adopted, but he persisted in some of 

 the old errors. This great Naturalist — for he studied and wrote 

 also upon animals, birds, fishes, and insects — lived for some 

 years at Middletou Hall, near Sutton Coldfield, the seat of 

 his friend and pupil Francis Willughby, and afterwards at 

 Sutton. Whilst there he published his " Catalogue of British 

 Plants," upon which all catalogues since published have 



