[ "3 ] 



they eftabliflied no precife definitions to their 

 claflfes, fo in their fubdivifions, or chapters, they 

 paid little or no regard to the minuter parts of 

 diftindion, taken from the frii6tification ; hence, 

 nothing like generical notes can be difcovered in 

 their methods : fo that the only refoiirce, in find- 

 ing many of their plants, was, to read over their 

 long and tedious defcriptions, which, after all, 

 were frequently infufiicient to diftinguifti the plant 

 fought for. 



That great naturalift Ci?;^r^i/^GESNER, who died in ^ 

 1 565, in his 50th year, appears to have been the 

 firft who thought, with any precifion, of a method 

 of claffing plants from the flower^ or fruit ; but he 

 only flightly touches thereon in his epifcles; he lived 

 not to bring any thing to perfeftion in this way. 

 It was referved for C^efalpinus^ phyfician to Pope 

 Clement VIII. to be the firft author who arranged 

 plants in a true fyftematic manner, in his Lihri de 

 Flantis^ publifhed in 1583, in which he eftablifhes 

 the characters principally from the fruit, Ic is 

 wonderful, that after his time, though fo many 

 eminent botanifts flourifhed, among whom were 

 the two Bauhines-i no one ever thought of purfu- 

 ing the plan he laid down, until Morifon and 

 Ray^ who both publifhed, nearly together, 

 their feparate fyftems, founded alfo upon dif- 

 tintflions principally drawn from the fruit. Since 

 their time, others have laboured to bring their 

 fyftems to perfedion ; as Knaut in Germany ; 

 Paul Herman^ and Boerhaave^ in Holland \ and 

 PUkmuSy late profeflbr at Oxford^ had ft ill far- 



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