LAMARCK AS A BOTANIST 



175 



projected two other works which gave him a still 

 higher position among botanists. His Dictionnaire de 

 Botanique W3.S published in 1783-1817, forming eight 

 volumes and five supplementary ones. The first two 

 and part of the third volume were written by La- 

 marck, the remainder by other botanists, who com- 

 pleted it after Lamarck had abandoned botanical 

 studies and taken up his zoological work. His second 

 great undertaking was L' Illustration des Genres (1791- 

 1800), with a supplement by Poiret (1823). 

 Cuvier speaks thus of these works : 



" U Illustration des Genres is a work especially fitted 

 to enable one to acquire readily an almost complete 

 idea of this beautiful science. The precision of the 

 descriptions and of the definitions of Linnaeus is 

 maintained, as in the institutions of Tournefort, with 

 figures adapted to give body to these abstractions, 

 and to appeal both to the eye and to the mind, and 

 not only are the flowers and fruits represented, but 

 often the entire plant. More than two thousand genera 

 are thus made available for study in a thousand plates 

 in quarto, and at the same time the abridged char- 

 acters of a vast number of species are given. 



" The Dictionnaire contains more details of the 

 history with careful descriptions, critical researches 

 on their synonymy, and many interesting observa- 

 tions on their uses or on special points of their organ- 

 izations. The matter is not all original in either of 

 the works, far from it, but the choice of figures is skil- 

 fully made, the descriptions are drawn from the best 

 authors, and there are a large number which relate 

 to species and also some genera previously unknown." 



Lamarck himself says that after the publication 

 of his Flore Frangaise, his zeal for work increasing. 



