RAY. 155 



mother died, to whom he was affectionately at- 

 tached, and of whom he says that she stuck con- 

 stantly to her profession, and never '^' left the church 

 in these times of giddiness and distraction." Im- 

 mediately after this event he repaired to Black Not- 

 ley, where he resolved to remain during the " short 

 pittance of time he had yet to live in this world." 



He now finished his Methodus Plantarum Nova, 

 which was published in 1682 ; and laboured at his 

 Historia Plantarum Generalis, of which the first vo- 

 lume appeared in 1686, the second in the following 

 year, and the third in 1704. In compiling this great 

 work, he received much valuable assistance from 

 his friends, but more especially from Sir Hans Sloane 

 and Dr Tancred Robinson. With respect to the former 

 of these publications, it may be stated, that it was 

 founded upon the labours of his predecessors, such as 

 Csesalpinus and Jungius, as well as on the writings of 

 Morison, whose method he principally followed. He 

 divided plants into woody and herbaceous. The 

 woody kinds he again divided into trees and shrubs, 

 distinguishing the trees by their possessing buds, 

 which he showed to be, in fact, new plants annually 

 springing from the old ones. The families were 

 better defined, the classes characterized with more 

 precision, and various terms introduced which were 

 of great advantage as tending to render the language 

 of botany more appropriate. The General History 

 of Plants is his most celebrated work on the ve- 

 getable kingdom. In it he describes with consi- 

 derable exactness and perspicuity all the species 

 which his predecessors had made known, adding 

 those that had been discovered in his own time. All 

 botanists who have spoken of this work agree in 



