342 Lecture on Botany. 



the study of medicinal plants ; and tliey were enabled to become 

 acquainted with many remarkable oriental plants through the 

 flourishing trade they carried on for centuries from Madeira to 

 China. It was towards and during the 15th century that a new 

 light dawned over free Italy. Science and Art received an impe- 

 tus under the spirited influence of rivalry. Dioscorides and Pliny 

 were then taken from the mouldy shelves and studied in the origi- 

 nal as pure fountains of botanical knowledge. But it is to the 

 German fathers, schoolmasters and professors of the 16th century, 

 that we look for the first natural exposition of Botany. Among 

 the most learned of these was Gesner, a physician and professor 

 at Zurich, who died in 1564. Besides possessing the merit of 

 being an extensive collector of plants, he described them, gave 

 designs, wood-cuts, and copper-plates, especially of foreign plants, 

 and was the first to draw attention to the important parts of fruc- 

 tification. Lobelius, also, of Flanders, who was afterwards super- 

 intendent of the garden of Queen Elizabeth of England, besides 

 his many discoveries, made the first attempt to arrange plants ac- 

 cording to a certain natural affinity. Great zeal and diligence 

 were now displayed in the advancement of the arts and sciences^ 

 and Botany flourished in every country. It had its advocates in 

 Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain, and the discovery of 

 America enlarged the field of research. Can it be wondered then, 

 that under these circumstances, there was urgent necessity of be- 

 coming acquainted with the an^itomy and structure of plants in 

 order to their systematic arrangement and classification. These 

 investigations were carried on under the auspices of the Society of 

 London for the promotion of Science, which was liberally supported 

 by Charles II. The discoveries of Grew, Secretary to the society, 

 are recorded in the immortal work, the Anatomy of Plants, pub- 

 lished in London in 1682, in which is found the doctiine of the 

 two-fold sex of plants. The same Society published the excellent 

 and peculiar investigations of Malpighi of Bologna. It was the 

 influence of such investigations that gave birth to the classification 

 JO plants according to a natural method. In the beginning of the 

 18th century, appeared the works of Morison, a Scotchman, and of 

 the celebrated John Ray, an English clergyman, who travelled for 

 many years through all Europe and published his Methodus Plan- 

 tarum Emendata, which gives the principles whereby genera and 

 species should be distinguished, and contains the elements of a 

 natural system, based upon a study of all the parts of the plai>t. 



