380 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MAY 
and that the roots of the science of botany are to be found before there was any- 
thing written. The author states that he has found no allusion among botanical 
writers to the fact of the universal existence of a crude primitive system of plant 
classification. The reviewer recalls that Dr. WHEEWELL, although not a ‘‘botani- 
cal writer,” in his History of the inductive sciences develops in considerable detail 
the same idea, using botany and zoology as the best representatives of the classi- 
ficatory sciences. The author seems to have laid emphasis on these older stages 
to show that due credit is not given to the older writers. This plea appears 
frequently in the book; one is not allowed to forget it. Such men as ADANSON, 
OURNEFORT, and LINNAEUS were improvers, not creators. While granting all 
the truth there is in this, it seems to the reviewer that its importance has been over- 
estimated. There has been some neglect in this respect, but the lack of definiteness 
and the changeableness in applying names and definitions have furnished a 
plausible excuse for the neglect. 
Like SpRENGEL and Meyer, the author begins with the rhizotomi, or root- 
gatherers, who sought plants for religious, culinary, or medicinal purposes. 
Their experience, traditions, and written accounts were drawn upon by THEO- 
PHRASTOS and others. The longest chapter, more than one-fourth of the volume, 
is given to THeopHRastos, the “father of botany.” It is based on a study of his 
storia plantarum, a very full summary of its contents being given, with con- 
clusions derived from their study. They are presented under the following heads: 
methods, vegetative organography, anthology, fruit and seed, anatomy, phytog- 
raphy, taxonomy, nomenclature, ecology, dendrology, and transmutation. Li 
find phenology given in the case of Tracus, and physiology and pomology in that 
of VaLERIUs Corpus. These topics indicate what the author has sought or 
found in the works that have been studied. It is evident that he made a careful — 
study of the Historia plantarum. In a recapitulation, containing seventeen 
items, there is a “list of facts botanical which THEOPHRASTOS saw, and in 
main discovered.” It is said to embrace “well-nigh all the first rudiments of 
what even today is universal scientific botany. It illustrates superabundantly the 
fact that THEOPHRasTOs, and no man of later time, is the father of the science 4s 
we now have and hold it.” I find no reference, except in the biography and in two 
footnotes, to the other principal work of THEOPHRASTOS, the De causis planiarum, 
which in Wier’s edition of his works, in pure Greek text without note OF 
comment, takes only twelve pages less than the Historia. It would not fit so well 
into the author’s ideal, since it deals more with matters physiologic, ecologic, and 
especially economic, how plants behave, how they are to be treated in cultivation, 
etc. MEYER complains that botanists, in their proclivity for the Historia, have 
“hitherto neglected in an unjustifiable way” this other “not less important” work. 
other chapter deals with those Greek and Roman authors whose botanical 
writings have survived. The Greeks are NIcANDER, who wrote in verse 0P 
poisons and their antidotes; and Droscortpes and GALEN, physicians, whose 
works are pharmaceutical and medical chiefly. Among the Romans the most 
important is Privy, much like Droscories in his treatment of plants; VERCM» 
