The Life and Writings of M. Desfontaines. ••209 



ceived with acclamation by all Botanists and which placed its author 

 in the first rank of Savans. This memoir shews the immense differ- 

 ence which exists in the structure and mode of growth of the two 

 great classes of phanerogamous plants, one of which has conical stems 

 provided with bark, increasing by the addition of fresh layers to the 

 exterior of the ligneous body, — and the others a cylindrical stem, 

 without real bark and increasing by the developement of fiHres, the 

 youngest of which are in the center and the oldest on the outside. This 

 memoir confirmed the distinction of plants by these most important 

 characteristics, opened a new career to anatomists and classifiers, 

 and has not ceased, during forty years, to constitute the basis of the 

 principal labors of Botanists, the key of the natural method and of 

 vegetable organography. The scientific Journals were eager to re- 

 publish this beautiful production, and the Academies to include the 

 author in the rank of their members. He however, astonished as it 

 were at his own triumph, seemed to fear that he might have occa- 

 sioned too great a revolution in science ; he stopped in this brilliant 

 career and left to others the care of developing all the consequences 

 of his discovery ; this is a remarkable instance in the history of sci- 

 ence, proving that to the possession of talents so superior as to lead 

 to the discovery of great and important truths there must be superin- 

 duced a certain boldness of character in order to deduce from it, its 

 legitimate results. 



After his return from Barbary, Desfontaines did not cease to study 

 to describe, and to draw the plants which he had collected. He de- 

 cided on publishing this great work, and in 1798 appeared the 

 first numbers of his Atlantic flora. This work was an epoch in de- 

 scriptive botany and still remains among the most classic and valued 

 books. The very few deficiences which even a rigorous critic can 

 discover in it, (and I have known none more so than was the author 

 himself with respect to his own work) attach to the period in which 

 he travelled and to the circumstances which ensued. Thus he re- 

 gretted having been so sparing in his details with respect to the geo- 

 graphical distribution of the plants of Barbary, — but these views were 

 entertained by nobody in 1784 and the loss of his manuscripts had de- 

 prived him of numerous documents. He regretted also that he had 

 neglected to observe some farther details relative to the fioiits and 

 seeds of plants ; but six years prior to Gaertner no one thought of the 

 importance which those characters have since acquired. If contrasted 

 with those slight defects which a rigorous impartiality induces me to 



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