PREFACE. 



Plants have not wanted observers since the time the Greeks considered 

 them possessed of souls and endowed with powers of thought. Pytha- 

 goras was the first who drew up a regular catalogue, which for many 

 ages was copied and modelled by his successors. In proportion as the 

 number of known plants increased, so did the classifiers, whose labors, 

 if they did nothing else, were useful in directing the attention to the sub- 

 ject. During the so-called dark ages, many an item of valuable informa- 

 tion was collected and preserved, which was afterwards of great service. 

 Even the superstitions of the early times served but the more to make 

 their acquaintance general. Who did not watch to see the blossoming 

 of the Winter Hellebore, to discover the exact time of the conversion of 

 St Paul ; or failed to recognize in the Crown-imperial, the royal flower 

 given by nature to celebrate the anniversary of the day of pious King 

 Edward,' the Saxon saint ? And even as the Bluebells hung out their ceru- 

 lean signals, the emblem of the ocean, on the day of St. George, in the 

 fields of merry England, did its islands recognize anew the assurance of 

 Britannia that she still ruled the waves. 



The first powerful impetus given to Botany, was during the supremacy 

 of the Eastern Califls. Haroun Al Raschid, the theme alike of history 

 and song, the hero of the " Arabian Nights," was exceedingly partial to 

 this branch of Natural History, and spared no pains or expense to make 

 it as perfect as possible ; far surpassing in this respect, as in many others, 

 his cotemporary and friend, the Emperor Charlemagne. 



This knowledge was wonderfully increased by the Crusades, which fol- 

 lowed some time after wards ; from this period native and foreign plants 

 were regularly preserved and exchanged, and we date the commencement 

 of Herbariums. An immense mass of information was now ready to serve 

 as a foundation for generalization. Bacon sent forth the inductive sys- 



