HISTuBf uF BOTANY. 
525 
exotics. He had the direction of the imperial garden at Vienna, 
and afterward was public professor of Botany at Ley den. His 
enthusiasm for this science terminated only with his life. Be- 
fore his time the (wt of describing plants with precision and ac- 
curacy was unknown y hut^ unlike the descriptions of his p>rede- 
cessors^ his were neither faulty from superfiaous terms ^ nor from 
the omission of important circumstances. 
346. Gcesalpinus., a native of Florence, who was contempo- 
rary with Clusius, proposed to form species into classes. The 
characters which he employed for this purpose were, the dura- 
tion^ and size of plants j pyt'esence-^ or absentee of flowers / the nura-- 
her of cotyledons ; the situation of the seed, as erect or pendent ; 
the adherence of the pericarp to the seeds / the number of cells 
in the pericarp^ and the number of seeds which they contained ; 
the adherence of the calyx to the ovary / and the nature of the 
root^ whether bulbous oy fibrous. This method was too imper- 
fect to be followed, having neither the simjjlicity nor the unity 
to render its application useful. 
347. Johii Bauhin was the friend and pupil of Gesner ; he 
composed a general history of plants. Gaspard Bauhin, a 
younger brother, no less active and learned, conceived the de- 
sign of a work which should contain a history of all known 
plants^ together with the different names which other writers had 
applied to the same plant. Clusius and the elder Bauhin had 
imagined something like a genus of plants, formed by the 
grouping of similar species, but Gaspard Bauhin expressed this 
more decidedly in remarks upon generic distinctions. His 
work, the result of forty years' labor, was of great assistance to 
Linnseus in perfecting our present system of Botany. We lind, 
in looking back upon the labors of botanists during the 16th 
century, that more had been accomplished than during any 
former period ; the character of novelty and originality exhib- 
ited in these researches is highly creditable to those who thus 
led the way in the march of improvement. 
348. The lYth century, in its commencement, was not favor 
able to the sciences. Europe was agitated by continual wars, 
and the arts of peace were neglected ; but in the last part of 
that age a taste for natural history revived / men of higTily 
gifted minds applied themselves to the study of Botany., and 
many undertook long voyages., with the sole design of examining 
foreign plants. Botanists were astonished at the great number 
of interesting plants discovered by travelers in the region of 
South Africa, around the Cape of Good Hope, and in the East 
India islands. Two Dutch botanists of the name of Gommelin, 
346, Caesalpinus — Characters employed by him in the formation of classes. — 347. The Baubiiw 
Retrospect of the 16th century.— 348. Botany in the 17t,h century 
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