124 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
cial evolution of species is being daily effected under our 
eyes,* is also true, though to a less degree, of the native 
plants of temperate regions, since the knowledge of wild 
plants long antedates the period of Linnaeus; which, for 
practical reasons, is commonly held to mark the beginning 
of modern botany. 
In the classification of a botanical library, the modern 
period is usually held to begin with the introduction of 
binomial nomenclature in the first edition of the Species 
Plantarum, published by Linnaeus in 1753, and this date is, 
therefore, made the limit of the Prelinnean alcove, at the 
Garden. Linnaeus, himself, however, had published many 
books before this date, and these should properly form a 
part of the Sturtevant library ; but for convenience it has 
seemed better to form a special group of Linneana. 
In attempting even so simple a task as cataloguing a col- 
lection of early books, greater difficulties are met with than 
in the case of most modern books. True, the nom deplume 
was less used then than now ; but anonymous works were 
numerous, and the title of Parkinson's Paradisus Terrestris 
leads to the suspicion of punning on both subject and 
author's name in other cases. Frequently, also, letters or 
minor papers by various authors are either printed with or 
bound in many of the earlier books, making frequent cross 
references necessary. And these difficulties are greatly in- 
creased by the frequent use of borrowed illustrations, with- 
out indication of their source ; the numerous editions, some- 
times greatly differing, sometimes with illustrations more 
changed than the text, printed for some of the early wri- 
ters ; their many commentators, often with multiple editions 
of their commentaries; the simultaneous publication of 
identical or slightly differing editions in different countries ; 
and the recomposition of reissues of a given edition, giving 
rise almost inevitably to minor differences which, in the 
eyes of the bibliophile, are of considerable importance. 
