<£arlg iBotamcal WLvittxg. 13 



botanift," followed, in fimilar connection 1 with the larger 

 garden founded by Lewis the Thirteenth. Both are faid 

 to have availed the writer whofe book we are" to notice; 

 but efpecially the latter, 2 who, there is little doubt, de- 

 ferves credit for all the American fpecies defcribed in it. 



The hiftory of Canadian and other new plants — " Cana- 

 deniium Plantarum, aliarumque nondum editarum Hifto- 

 ria " of Jacobus Cornuti, Doctor of Medicine, of Paris — 

 was printed in that city (pp. 238) in 1635, under the 

 patronage juft mentioned; and contains accounts, accom- 

 panied, in every cafe but one, with figures on copper, of 

 thirty-feven of our plants; of which the meadow-rue is 

 known to botanifts as Thalictrum Cornuti ; and the com- 

 mon milkweed, as Asclepias Cornuti. Though himself 

 not eminent as a botanift, 3 the work of Cornuti was valua- 



1 He is called Botanicus Regius by Cornuti, p. 22 ; and the same title is given 

 to both the Robins, in the printed catalogue of plants cultivated by them. 

 Tournefort indicates the office of Vespasian Robin, at the new Botanic Garden, 

 as follows: " Brossceus . . . primus Horti prrefeftus, studiosis plantas indigitandi 

 numeri prseposuit Vespasianum Robinum diligentissimum Botanicum." — Inst. 

 Rei Herb., vol. i. p. 4S. And the recent writer in the Biographie Universelle, 

 says, more expressly, that the royal ordonnance establishing the garden names 

 Vespasian Robin "sub-demonstrator" of botany, with a stipend of two hundred 

 francs yearly. According to this writer, the two Robins were not, as has been 

 said, father and son, but brothers ; and Vespasian the elder. This one must have 

 reached a great age, as the celebrated Morrison, who visited France in 1640, and 

 remained there twelve years, calls himself his disciple. — Biog. Universelle, in 

 loco. 



2 Tournefort, ubi supra. 



3 Cornuti autem parum fuit in plantarum cognitione versatus, ut manifestum 

 est ex ineptis appellationibus quibus utitur in Enchiridio Botanico Parisiensi, et 

 descriptionibus speciosis ab Herbariorum stylo tamen alienis. — Tournef. Inst., 

 vol. i. p. 43. Compare, as to the botanical merits of Cornuti, the writer in Biog- 

 raphie Universelle, who says that Cornuti's terminology, to which Tournefort 



