3^4 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



to the lower families of plants, in correcting it, and in foL 

 lowing out with more attention those views which he had 

 neglected. Hence their chief attention has been directed to 

 the improvement of the generic characters, — more care has 

 been used in the examination of fruits and seeds, and, by de- 

 grees, the Linnaean System has come to be regarded simply 

 as an assistance to beginners, whilst the forming of a Natural 

 Method has been viewed as the highest object of botany. 

 Among the individuals who have examined the sexual sys- 

 tem, especially in the low^er organic bodies, Casimir Christo- 

 pher Schmidel, professor at Erlangen, who died 1793, John 

 Hedwig, professor at Leipsig, who died 1799, and Joseph 

 Gottlieb Kolreuter, deserve to be first mentioned. Schmidefs 

 Icones et Analyses Plantarum, Nurnberg, 1782, in folio ; 

 Hedwig's Theoria Generationis, Leipsig, 1798 ; his Funda- 

 mentum Historige Naturalis Muscorum frondosorum, Leip- 

 sig, 1782 ; and his Stirpes Cryptogamicae, in four volumes, 

 Leipsig, 1787 to 1797 : and Kolreuter'^s Entdecktes Geheim- 

 niss der Kryptogamie, 1787, are the works in which princi- 

 pally the existence of the sexual parts, in the lower organic 

 bodies, are treated of. Yet that these excellent natural histo- 

 rians only followed out an idea which had formerly been con- 

 ceived, has been shewn by Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin (Historia 

 Fucorum, St Petersburg!!, 1768), and Philip Cavolini, (On 

 the Animal Plants of the Mediterranean, translated by Wil- 

 liam Sprengel, Nurnberg, 1813). The effect of the nectaries 

 on fructification, was completely developed by Christian Con- 

 rad Sprengel, who died 1816 ; (Das Entdeckte Geheimniss 

 der Natur im Bau, und in der Befruchtung der Blumen, Ber- 

 lin, 1793, 4to.) 



462. 



The Linnsean Species Plantarum has found several editors of 

 very unequal meri l. J ohn J acob Beichard, physician at Frank- 

 fort on the Maine, who died 1789, produced nothing in his 

 edition, which was published in 1779 and 1780, in four vo- 

 lumes, but the supplements from the Mantissae of Linnaeus, 

 and here and there some scattered remarks. The Systema 

 Vegetabilium of John Frederick Gmelin, professor at Got- 



