98 



The Natuealist. 



of the earlier botanists proceeded to study the medical properties of 

 plants. This was very easily done. Men knowing themselves to be 

 afflicted by various diseases and accidents, naturally looked around 

 them amongst the vegetable kingdom for remedies. This is even yet 

 the case amongst savage nations. Another aspect of the subject to 

 which attention was directed was the economical one — to what 

 practical every-day use plants could be employed. In regard to all 

 these aspects the earliest botanists were guilty of the greatest 

 mistakes, particularly with regard to the functions of plants. They 

 advanced speculations and theories innumerable, but altogether 

 ignored facts ; and possibly not one in ten thousand of their theories 

 is of the slightest use or value to us from a scientific point of view. 



Linnaeus introduced many and great reforms into the study of 

 botany ; but even before him two other men, had made a lew 

 important advances. Among the Egyptians there was some know- 

 ledge of the sexes of plants, and they learned the way to produce 

 perfect seed in certain plants by introducing the pollen of the male 

 flower into the pistil of the female ; but it is not at all likely they knew 

 anything of the theoretical reasons for their so doing. Millington and 

 another re-discovered something of the sexuality of plants, by finding 

 that the functions of the pollen and the ovary were different. Lobel 

 also discovered that onion and grass, and some other seeds, when 

 sowed, came up with only one seed-leaf, or cotyledon, while on the 

 other hand the radish, the oak, and some other plants always 

 produced two seed-leaves. These and others were preparing the way 

 for Linneeus. 



He wrote that the characteristic of a botanist of those days was, 

 that that man was the best botanist who knew the names of the 

 greatest number of species. Linnaeus first adopted and introduced 

 what we now call the binomial system of nomenclature — by which 

 system all plants which possess certain characteristics in common are 

 united into one genus, under one name, and their specific distinctions 

 are denoted by another name added to it. (The Professor gave a 

 number of instances illustrative of this method.) The re-discovery 

 of the sexuality of plants was made use of by Linnajus as a 

 means of classification. The two Jussieus did great service to 

 botanical science, and the younger of them introduced a new 

 system of classification. That of Linnaeus was an artificial 

 one, as he himself well knew, and brought together many plants 

 that are undoubtedly allied, and many others also which have 

 no natural alliance whatever ; but he also left a sketch of a more 



