June 30, 1910 57 



was an experimenter, too; as with willow?. "Whether this 

 wool of willows be their seed or not I do not know," he writer, 

 "except as regards the fourth species, in the case of which it at 

 least takes the place of seeds; for in this I have caught the float- 

 ing wool, have sown it, and have seen willows of this same spe- 

 cies spring up from the sowing." But he was disposed to think 

 that willows usually originated from mud, for he was a firm be- 

 liever in abiogene i , and held that many plants were generated 

 by lifeless matter. 



Next in this group of German medical botanists come Eu- 

 ricius and Valerius Cordus, father and son. The contribution 

 to botanical literature of the elder Cordus was a colloquy entit- 

 led Bo!auicologicon, in which he exposed, and in part corrected, 

 the wrong identifications which were current of the plants de- 

 sciibed by the classical authorities. 



The son was a young man of brilliant and original genius, 

 with an i isight into plant organography far superior to that of 

 any botanist up to his time. His discoveries were many and 

 important, and he seems to have been on the road which would 

 have led him to others of still greater significance. He died at 

 Rome, when but 29 years of age, and his Historia Plantarum 

 was not published until 1 561, seventeen years after his death. 

 In it he described some 500 species, anew and direct from na- 

 ture, and after a definite and methodical plan. In organography 

 he made great advancements, distinguishing the corymb from 

 the umbel, defining the bract and the involucre, and establish- 

 ing the character of the calyx, which no longer need be a "bag" 

 or a "cup," but an organ of any figure situated beneath the 

 ' t flower, ,, as the corolla was then called — a dependence upon po- 

 sition in place of form. He conceived the term "papilionace- 

 ous" to designate the "flowers borne by all leguminou; plants." 

 He seems, indeed, instinctively to feel the importance of the 

 flower, and studies it with greater care and comprehension than 

 any of his predecessors. He notices the "dust" shed by the 

 anthers, ami calls it "pollen," of course not at all understanding 

 its nature; but he knew that ferns were "propagated by the 

 powder produced on the back of the leaf, and blown away by 



