234 



means expect to convince experienced naturalists." His ideas 

 were defended in this country by Asa Gray, and strenuously op- 

 posed by Agassiz. Schimper, whose name is associated with the 

 doctrine of phyllotaxis, says "Darwin's doctrine of breeding is 

 the most short-sighted possible, most stupidly mean and brutal." 

 Of species-making Darwin says he does not think more credit 

 should be given to a naturalist for describing a species than to a 

 carpenter for making a box. Impressed by the difficulties of 

 nomenclature, he left a provision in his will which resulted in the 

 preparation of the ''Index Kewensis'' of flowering plants (1885). 

 Alexander Braun, nature-philosopher and botanist, combined 

 suggestions from Brown, Endlicher and others and in 1864 pro- 

 posed the groups: 



Bryophyta (Algae, Fungi and Moss-like Plants) 



CoRMOPHYTA (Ferns and Club-mosses) 



\ Gymnospermae (Frondosae and Acerosae) 

 Anthophyta -| Angiospermae (Monocotyledons and Dicoty- 



[ ledons) 



Thus the old groups based on cotyledons were subordinated to 

 the division gymnosperms and angiosperms, and the importance 

 of Robert Brown's discovery at last recognized. 



Sachs, in the first edition of his Lehrhuch (1868), adopted five 

 principal groups — Thallophyta, Characeae, Muscineae, Vascular 

 Cryptogams, Phanerogams. His idea of the Linnaean school 

 is expressed in his "History of Botany": "A mass of lifeless 

 phrases was the instruction offered to the majority of students 

 under the name of botany, with the inevitable effect of repelling 

 the more gifted natures from the study. This was the evil result 

 of the old notion that the sole or chief business of every botanist 

 is to trifle away time in plant collecting in wood and meadow, and 

 in rummaging in herbaria. Even the better sort lost the sense 

 for higher knowledge while occupying themselves in this way 

 with the vegetable world. The powers of the mind could not 

 fail after a time to deteriorate and every textbook of the period 

 supplies proof of this deterioration." 



Following a series of colonial floras, Bentham and Hooker 



