HISTORY OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



CHAP. I. 



THE HISTORY OP BOTANICAL SCIENCE. 



In a survey " of the Earth and Animated 

 Nature," one important part of creation comes 

 to be considered — the Vegetable products which 

 clotlie and adorn the surface of the soil, and 

 nrhich form a link, and a most important one, 

 between inorganic matter and the animated 

 beings existing upon the globe. In order to 

 enhance our ideas of the beauty and useful- 

 ness of vegetables, we have only to picture 

 to ourselves what would be the appearance of 

 the face of nature without them. "We would 

 have the surface of the earth, it is true, portioned 

 out into hill and valley, and intersected at con- 

 venient distances by streams and rivers ; but 

 every thing would be bare, rugged, and unseemly, 

 and nothing but a picture of desolate barrenness 

 would appear. Even the soil which covers the 

 sterile and flinty roeks, and which serves to fill 

 up and smooth over the abrupt ravines and pre- 

 cipices existing in these, would, in a great mea- 

 sure, be wanting ; for one effect of vegetation is, 

 by the successive decay of leaves and fibres, to 

 accumulate the deep black loam so essential to 

 the growth of fresh vegetation. The endless 

 variety of objects in the vegetable kingdom, the 

 beautiful forms, and the curious structure of 

 plants, are no less interesting to the student of 

 nature, than the history of animals, or of inor- 

 ganized matter. Nor is the study less important, 

 as bearing upon the necessities, conveniences, and 

 elegancies of life. 



The study of the vegetable kingdom has been 

 called Botany, from a Greek word, (iorai/% sig- 

 nifying herb or grass ; and it embraces, 1st, A 

 knowledge of the various parts composing plants, 

 and of their uses, their mode of growth and cul- 

 ture, and their diffusion over the earth. 2d, An 

 arrangement of plants into classes and families, 

 according to certain prevailing resemblances, by 



I which they are named and described, so that 

 they may readily be known. Sd, The vari- 

 ous uses of plants, as for food, medicine, arts and 

 manufactures. The profusion with which the 

 beneficent God of nature has clothed the earth 

 with every variety of vegetable form, is truly 

 wonderful ! Every region of the globe swarms 

 with multitudes of different kinds, beyond the 

 power of the botanist to enumerate. The con- 

 templation of these affords an ever-varying de- 

 light to the senses, while the investigation of 

 their habits and structures no less agreeably 

 exercises the judgment. A tree is perhaps one 

 of the most noble and beautiful objects in nature. 

 The massive strength of the trunk, the graceful 

 tortuosity of the branches, and the beautiful and 

 variegated green of the leaves, are all so many 

 sources of pleasure to the beholder. But when 

 we think of the series of fibres and- tubes by 

 which this tree for ages, perhaps, has drawn 

 nourishment from the earth, and, by a process 

 of assimilation, added circle after circle of woody 

 matter round the original stem, till it has ac- 

 quired its present enormous bulk ; when we re- 

 flect on the curious mechanism of the leaves by 

 which, like the lungs of an animal, they decom- 

 pose the air of the atmosphere, selecting through 

 the day what part of it is fit to enter into the 

 composition of the tree, and giving out at night 

 a different species of air ; when we think of the 

 sap passing up the small series of tubes during 

 summer, and these tubes again remaining dor- 

 mant and inactive throughout the long winter — 

 these reflections awaken a train of ideas in the 

 mind more lasting and more intense than even 

 the first vivid impressions of simple beauty. 



The attention of the earliest races of mankind 

 must have been directed to the vegetable king- 

 dom ; first of aL, as furnishing important neces- 

 saries of life, and afterwards as objects of luxury 

 and ornament, and pleasing subj ects of speculation. 

 We find Noah represented as a husbandman, 

 planting the vine and manufacturing its juice 



