258 



GLIMPSES OF OLD HERBALS. 



was capable of developing into fishes and birds. 

 The fact was corroborated by many travelers, whose 

 stories on the whole, agreed. One account says 

 that the tree grew along the rivers of Scotland, 

 and that its fruit was rather long and cylindrical. 

 It fell just before ripening, and the fruits which fell 

 upon the land rotted, while those which fell into the 

 ■water swam about, received wings and feathers, 

 and appeared like birds in every respect. Another 

 traveller said that the same tree grew on the island 

 of Pomonia, near Scotland. The birds were called 

 tree-birds (Oyson d'Arbre). Italian voyagers also 

 believed in the existence of this tree, and said it 

 grew on the Hebrides Islands, by the sea shore. 

 An old English story about the tree runs as follows : 



The Wonderful Barometz or Scythian Lamb. 



Several high officials of England say that in Hiber- 

 nia (Ireland) there grows on the sea shore a certain 

 tree which becomes fertilized in the spring. Small 

 buds grow from it, and in due time these become 

 flying birds. Certain men of England and Scotland 

 who have seen the trees say that the fruits which 

 fall from this tree into the water become fishes, and 

 those falling upon the land become birds covered 

 with many colored feathers. Some said that the 

 birds were about as large as pheasants, and pure 

 white in color. An Italian naturalist succeeded in 

 obtaining a few specimens and exhibited them for 

 some time in Venice. All these stories are inti- 

 mately connected with the formation of barnacles 

 upon ships and old logs, and which were supposed 



to be transformed fruits fallen from overhanging 

 trees. These barnacles eventually, it was thought, 

 developed into geese, a superstition still recorded in 

 the name barnacle geese. Gerarde and many 

 others describe this goose-tree at length and in full 

 confidence. 



Modern systematic botany dates its birth with 

 Linnasus' Systema NattcrcE, 1735, wherein the defi- 

 nitions proposed made it possible to describe plants 

 in such a manner as to secure identification. The 

 sexual system of Linnaeus was, however, outlined 

 in his F!o7-ula Lapponica as early as 1732 and 1733. 

 In 1737 appeared the Genera Platttarum and the 

 Critica Botanica, in which the modern system of 

 generic and specific names received particular at- 

 tention and botanical 

 laws were promul- 

 gated. In 1753 his 

 crowning work. Spe- 

 cie s Plantarum, ap- 

 peared. At the pres- 

 ent time botany com- 

 mences its nomen- 

 clature with the Ge- 

 7iera Plantarum,!'] ^j, 

 for genera, and the 

 Species Plantarum. 

 17531 for species. 



There were a host 

 of writers on plants, 

 however, before Lin- 

 naeus. In 1552 Tra- 

 gus cites the names 

 of nearly 150 Greek 

 writers on plants, but 

 the majority of these 

 scarcely deserve 

 enumeration as bota- 

 nists. Sprengel, i n 

 his History of Botany, enumerates two hundred 

 botanists preceding the year 1600. The earliest 

 writings on plants, such as those of Theophrastus, 

 Dioscorides, Pliny, etc., contain but vague, short 

 and insufficient descriptions, and more space was 

 devoted to recording uses, especially in medicine, 

 than to identification of species. In the middle 

 ages the earlier writings were mainly of commenta- 

 tors on the ancient works, and were often more 

 learned than correct. In the sixteenth century 

 appeared works based on the cultivation of plants 

 and observations of them in the fields, and the 

 earliest and foremost of these authors are Brunfel- 

 sius, 1530 ; Fuchsius, 1542, and Bock, 1546. In 

 these herbals the inadequacy of the descriptions are 



