66 
HISTORY OF BOTANY. 
in 1705, in the 77th year of his age, after having acquired great cele- 
brity. 
Linnaeus gave a still more unfavourable opinion of him. He draws 
his character in the above mentioned letter as follows: 44 Ray cer- 
ts tainly was a most laborious man in collections and descriptions; but 
« in that branch of botanical knowledge which relates to the genera of 
44 plants, he was less than nothing; and in the examination of flowers a 
44 mere nonentity. Compare the first edition of his botanical system 
44 with the second and third. Every thing it contains he borrowed from 
44 Tournef ort. I am at a loss to divine why nobody takes notice of 
44 the discoveries of Caesalpin us, and wishes to ascribe every thing 
« to Ray *. Both Morison and Ray derived their botanical systems 
44 from the fruit of plants.” 
To these authors of systems may be added Augustus Rivin, a 
Saxon, professor of botany at Leipzick, where he died in 1723, in the 
seventy-first year of his age. He classified the plants by the number 
of their petals or the leaves of their flowers, and divided them into 
eighteen classes — a division subject to many material defeats t. 
ihodica Stirpium Britannicorum , London , 1690. Historia Plant arum Generality London , 
1693. 
* Certe vir laboriosissiinus in colligendo, describendo, &c. at in genericis minus nihilo, in 
examinandis floribus plane nullus. Qmeso, confer ejus primam editionem Metbodi cum se- 
cunda et tertia, ubi a Tournefortio edoctus fuit omnia. Nescio cur nullus Ctesalpini 
observare potuit inventa.— See a full opinion on the merits of Ray in Dr. Rich. Pulte- 
nby’s Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England, from its 
origin to the introduction of the Linn a: an system. Vol. i, London, 1790, octavo. 
1 ' His principal botanical writings are — Introduflio Generalis in rem Herbariam. Lips. 
1690. Ordines Flantarum Irregulariutn Flore Monopetalo, Tctrapetalo et Pentapetalo • 
Lips. 1690. 
1 
Thus 
