l6o CHAPTER 39. 
He has not enumerated fewer than 980 
fpecies, of what were then called the more 
perfeit plants ; that is, exclufive of the 
Mujhroom clafs, and all the Mqfes. Dil- 
L EN I us entered minutely into the examina- 
tion of this clafs ; and, by his diligence and 
difcoveries, extended the bounds of that 
field, which the Englip botanifts had fo 
fuccefsfully cultivated before him. More 
had been done in England in this way than 
in any other nation. The Pinax of Cafpar 
Bauhine contains but fifty fpecies ; fo 
little had the Mujci been regarded before. 
The firft edition of Ray's Synopfis, printed 
in 1690, not more than about eighty 
kinds 5 whereas by the inveftigations of the 
Englijh botanifts, particularly of Doody, 
Sherard, Vernon, Llhwyd, Robin- 
son, Petiver, Bobart, and others, this 
order was fo far augmented in the fecond 
edition of the fame work, in 1696, as to 
contain upwards of 170 fpecies. 
DiLLENius was, however, the firft wri- 
ter who examined them with a view to ge- 
nerical charafters, and divided the MoJJ'eSy 
and MuJJjroofns^ each into feparate genera^ 
It 
