754 Historical Sketch of the Science of Botany (December, 
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE SCIENCE OF BOTANY 
IN NORTH AMERICA FROM 1635 TO 1840. 
BY FREDERICK BRENDEL, 
HISTORY of the science of botany in North America 
means not in this sketch a history of that science in all its 
branches, but rather the history of traveling and local collectors, 
and of descriptive botany so far as it concerns American plants. 
For until Prof. A. Gray’s popular book, “How Plants Grow” 
appeared in 1858, not a single work of any importance was pub- 
lished in this country, either on anatomy or on the physiology of 
plants, not even a single one of the many systems ever proposed 
had its origin in America. And yet the labors of American and 
foreign scientists in America contributed their large share to the 
advancement of science. They furnished the material for the 
work in all the other branches of botany, and particularly in the 
geography of plants. Most of them did a toilsome work, exposed 
in the wilderness to manifold fatigues and perils; many died far 
from home on the glorious battlefield of science, as it were, sword 
in hand; some a violent death, others swept away by a pernicious 
climate. 
1635-1800.—It was in 1635 that the first book on North 
American plants ever written, was published by Jacques Philippe 
Cornut, a French physician. He described Canadian plants 
brought over to Europe, in a book entitled: Canadensium Plantar- 
um Historia. It is illustrated by good drawings, most of the 
species being recognizable at first sight, though the names given 
are quite different from those now in use. But the work does 
not contain, as might be inferred from the title, Canadian plants 
only, but also some others from Spain and the Orient. Not until 
thirty-seven years afterward, in 1672, was another account of 
American plants given by John Josselyn, in a book entitled 
Rariora Nove Anglie, and in 1674, in an account of two voyages 
in New England. 
At the same time, in 1672, Wm. Hughes published in London, | 
The American Physician, or a Treatise of the Roots, Plants, ete. 
-~ In Ray’s Historia Plantarum, 1688, second volume, we find a 
Virginia, where he made his collections. The same catalogue 
 “Catalogus plantarum in Virginia observatarum,” by John Ban- = 
ister, an English missionary and botanist, who came, in 1680, to 
