54 Muhlenbergia, Volume 6 



begin with the first books of botany, nor with the men who in- 

 dited them." Our author holds it to be "the essence and sub- 

 stance of botany proper," and that along the line of the devel- 

 opment of organography and its terminology alone can "a coher- 

 ent and philosophical history of botany" be written. 



He begins, then, with a short account of the Rhizotomi, 

 the Root-gatherers of ancient Greece, who have their represen- 

 tatives, equally unentitled to be recognized as botanists, in the 

 diggers of ''Sang," and other "cullers of simp'es," in the moun- 

 tains of our own land. Vet it was probably to their influence 

 that he ascribes the undue attention that writers, even up to the 

 eighteenth century, devoted to the description and figuring of 

 the roots of plants. 



It is with Theophrastu<, the long acknowledged "Father of 

 Botany," that its authentic history begins. He was bum at 

 Eresus, on the islai d >f Lesbos, 376 years bt-f >re the Christian 

 e - a, and lived to be more than a centenarian. While yet a 

 youth lie studied under Plato, and later became the pupil and 

 friei.d of Aristotle, and eventually his literal - } executor and his 

 successor in the Lyceum. The day of the specialist was centu- 

 ries below the horizon, and the Eresian, like his master the 

 Stagerite, was a philosopher, a professor of the whole round of 

 knowledge, and a botanist only as botany was a part of that 

 round. He traveled little, and the most of his knowledge of 

 plants seems to have been acqv.i ed by his studies in what may 

 be called the earliest of botanical gardens wherein he taught. 

 He was an acute observer, and attained to a remarkable knowl- 

 edge of plant life, while his illuminating and constructive mind 

 deduced therefrom principle* that remain among the fundamen- 

 tals of the science. In contrast with our positive diagnoses, he 

 described plants by comparison, one unknown being likened to 

 another that was familiar. Thus, where we would define a leaf 

 as lanceolate, he would state that it was like that of a willow. 

 This method was universally followed for many centuries, and 

 traces of it yet remain in our present nomenclature, when we 

 confer such specific names as salici/olia, or the like. 



