58 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. $4 



are so crowded with facts about seeds, seeds in process of germina- 

 tion, young seedling plants and older ones, observations upon this 

 plant and that shrub as they appear in spring, summer, autumn, and 

 winter, that, all being considered, we should have wondered greatly 

 how this most untravelled and sedentary of the great philosophers 

 had gained all this minuteness of knowledge about the little things 

 of plant life had we not been informed concerning this great garden 

 in the midst of which he dwelt, taking his daily recreation along its 

 paths, and among its seed beds, and within the bounds of which, 

 obedient to his last request, they buried him. 



Theophrastus was a voluminous author, having written upon a 

 great diversity of topics. The biographer Laertius gives the 

 titles of 227 treatises. Not many of these have reached us; but 

 among those preserved are the Historia Plantarum, in nine books, 

 with the fragment of a tenth, and the De Causis Plantarum, origin- 

 ally in eight books according to ancient records, of which the last 

 two have long been lost. The following paragraphs are the result 

 of a prolonged and laborious study of the principal work, the His- 

 toria, the edition quoted being that of Stapelius, published at 

 Amsterdam in 1644. 



As we have already seen,' there existed in the old Greek literature 

 that was before Theophrastus, many a trace of properly botanical 

 observation and reflection, so that he is not in such wise the father 

 of botanical science as that no one before him had recorded a 

 philosophic thought or suggestion about the plantjwprld^ separately 

 considered. Yet he is, in most cases which he cites, the sole per- 

 petuator o: the name and fame of such as Menestor, Hippon, and 

 Leophanes whose passages he quotes and in quoting has saved 

 from oblivion. There is, then, no reason to suppose that in his 

 philosophizings about plant life he had been helped by any pre- 

 decessors beyond that for which he has given them full credit. 

 It has been observed by historians and critics that a few passages 

 in Theophrastus are also in Aristotle, unaltered, and uncredited 

 to their real author. This hardly merits notice. It is undoubted 

 that the enlistment of Theophrastus' great talents in the service 

 of botany was secured by Aristotle; and it is as certain that the 

 alliance between these two celebrities of antiquity was that of the 

 most devoted friendship; that at Aristotle's demise all his manu- 

 scripts, published and unpublished, complete and fragmentary 

 were gladly bestowed on Theophrastus. They became his property. 



1 See pp. 48-50 preceding. 



