A New Era EstasiisHep sy Crustus 405 
His description and figure of ‘ Aster conyzoides Gesneri’’ fur- 
nished the starting-point for the further treatment of the plant by 
botanists, the original by Gesner being to most an unseen rarity. 
LXXXVII; €xwsivs 
Last of the three friends of Flanders we consider Clusius, post- 
poning him till after Dodoens and Lobel because his numerous 
original publications of Aster make him for that genus the end of 
one era and the beginning of a new. When he began botanic work 
in 1550, he found Aster substantially a monotypic genus, and so he 
published it in 1557; in 1576 he put forth his first new Aster ; by 
1583 he had altered the aspect of the genus from simple to com- 
plex, with his Pannonian species ; and when he died in 1609, the 
genus had been already well tangled by his younger contempo- 
Taries. 
Clusius’ Early Life-—By birth Charles de 1’Escluse, he was 
usually known as Carolus Clusius Atrebatis; ¢. ¢., of Arras, his 
birthplace, Arras in Artois, now in France but then in Flanders, 
Where his Huguenot family were religious exiles from France. 
Meyer was eager to class him with German botanists, the greater 
part of his life being spent in the Netherlands or in Germany. In- 
deed it is a significant fact that since Ruellius at the century’s 
beginning, or since the Huguenot wars had begun to devastate 
France, almost all botanical work which emanated from men of 
French descent for the rest of that century was published in the 
Netherlands, as comparison of the printers of Clusius, Lobel, 
Dalechamp, Des Moulins, Pena and Rondelet will attest. 
Born in March, 1526, Clusius was nine years younger than 
Dodoens, twelve years older than Lobel ; his father was proprietor 
of an estate in good circumstances and vested with high official 
dignity. Educated at Ghent and Louvain, in 1548 Clusius was at 
Marburg, in 1549 he went to Wittenberg to be with Melancthon, 
in 1550 to Frankfort, Strasburg, Lyons and Montpellier. 
Clusius’ Life as a Botanist.—At Montpellier he remained three 
years, 1550-1553, studying under the naturalist Rondelet, and 
living in his house. Under the influence of Rondelet, who was 
botanist, physician and ichthyologist, Clusius, who had been a 
