HISTORICAL INTEOBUCTION. XXXV 



forming part of the National collection, and are of untold 

 worth in determining the plants of our early writers. 



Ray's Synopsis was a most careful account of the British 

 plants he had himself seen growing in the country ; first issued 

 in 1690, it reached a second edition six years later, and was 

 in 1724 recast by Dillenius. In this form it remained the 

 standard authority for the plants of our country for quite forty 

 years ; Ray's greatest work was, nevertheless, his Historia 

 plantarum in three folio volumes. His various botanical pro- 

 ductions were drawn up after his own method of classification. 



The next noteworthy name we meet with is that of Joseph 

 Pitton de Tournefort, the practical founder of genera, and there- 

 fore in great measure the present system of classification. His 

 Elemens de hotanique, and the Latin version, entitled Institutiones, 

 contain lists of the various species ranked under his genera, 

 which genera were so happily selected, and their essential 

 characters so instinctively seized by their author, that a very 

 large proportion of them were adopted by Linnaeus as they 

 stood. The third great systematist of this period was Rivinus, 

 with whom Ray had some controversy. 



In this rapid survey, the remarkable work of Micheli, the 

 Nova plantarum genera, a production of singularly acute 

 observation, must not be forgotten. 



Dillenius, who had been brought to England by "William 

 Sherard, wrote an account of James Sherard's garden at 

 Eltham, entitled Hortus elthamensis ; the illustrations, as in 

 all his other works, being the production of his own accurate 

 etching. Shortly before his death, he brought out his splendid 

 Historia muscorum, the drawings in which are as remarkable 

 for their truth in details, as happy in their showing the habit 

 of each plant. The anatomy of plants was investigated by 

 Grew in this country, and Malpighi in Italy, and their 

 results were isSued in the form of valuable folios, with good 

 engravings. 



