226 Conclusions [ch. ix 



classification, nomenclature and description reach their high- 

 water mark, though it is to de I'Obel, and to his precursor. 

 Bock, one of the " German Fathers of Botany," that we 

 owe the first definite efforts after a natural system. It is 

 pleasant to remember that Jean Bauhin, to whom his 

 younger brother Gaspard probably owed his first botanical 

 inspiration, was a pupil of Leonhard Fuchs at Tubingen, so 

 that the latter has a double claim to be associated with 

 the results of the " herbal period " at its best. We began 

 this book with a portrait of Leonhard Fuchs, and we may 

 well conclude with his name — that of the greatest and 

 most typical of sixteenth-century herbalists. 



