HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



3^5 



tingen, 1791, soon fell into neglect, because it was conduct- 

 ed with little discrimination. Charles Lewis Willdenow, 

 professor at Berlin, who died 1812, edited an excellent edi- 

 tion of the Species, especially in that part which embraces the 

 ten latter classes. His edition appeared between 1797 and 

 1810, in ten volumes, and goes as far as the end of the 

 Ferns. An early death took from us a still more excellent 

 follower of Linnaeus. This was Martin Vahl, professor at 

 Copenhagen, who died 1804, and whose Enumeratio Planta- 

 rum includes only the first and second, and a part of the 

 third class. Christian Henry Persoon, in his Synopsis Plan- 

 tarum, 1805 and 1 807, gave an Abridgment of Willdenow, 

 and added to it the recent discoveries of the French. Of late, 

 John Jacob Romer, professor at Zurich, who died 1819, and 

 Joseph August Schultes, professor at Landshut, have com- 

 menced an undertaking, to which we cannot but wish a more 

 successful progress, but to which the well-founded objection 

 of too great diffuseness, and of the want of critical discrimi- 

 nation, may be made ; (Systema Vegetabilium, vol. i. 4to., 

 Tubingen, 1817 to 1819.) 



463. 



The science has made the most important advances, since 

 the attention of natural historians was directed to the most 

 essential product of vegetation, namely, the seed and fruit ; 

 and since, by this means, the idea of natural relationship has 

 been again awakened. This zeal has been excited in the live- 

 liest manner by the masterly work of Joseph Gaertner, physi- 

 cian at Calw, in Wirtemberg, de Fructibus et Seminibus 

 Plantarum, which appeared in two volumes, at Stutgard, 

 1788 and 1791, with 180 copperplates, and to which his son 

 added a Supplement, with 45 copperplates, in 1805. 



Independent of this author, Antony Lorenzo Jussieu, pro- 

 fessor at Paris, in the spirit of his uncle, formerly mentioned, 

 constructed a natural method, which was published under the 

 title Genera Plantarum, 1789, and is distinguished chiefly by 

 its correct and carefully constructed generic characters, Ste- 

 phen Peter Ventenat, professor at Paris, who died 1808, also 

 was of much service to the natural method, by his Tableau 



