56 
MEMOIR OF RAY. 
he had published a Catalogus Stirpium in exteris 
regionibuSy &c., which was now out of print ; and 
his attention being recalled, by Ran wolf’s book, to 
exotic botany, he conceived that it would be of 
advantage to travellers to have a condensed view of 
the vegetables of Europe, exclusive of those indi- 
genous to Britain, which were sufficiently illustrated 
in his other works. He accordingly collected all 
that were mentioned by authors, and added them to 
such as he had himself discovered. This volume 
appeared in 1694, and was entitled Stirpium JEuro- 
pcearum extra Britannia s nascentium Sylloge. The 
plants are arranged in alphabetical order, and, be- 
sides the addition of various lists from Boccone’s 
Plants of Sicily, and other works, there is subjoined 
a geographical view of the species which he observed 
on the Continent ; perhaps the earliest attempt to 
illustrate the distribution of vegetables that had been 
made. In the preface to this book he discusses the 
merits of a method of arranging plants, proposed by 
Bivinus, professor of botany at Leipsic, which led to 
a controversy with that author. The method of Bi- 
vinus is entirely artificial, and is founded on the regu- 
larity and irregularity of the corolla, and the number 
of petals of which it is composed. It has the appear- 
ance of great simplicity, but leads to many very un- 
natural combinations, and is, in reality, of difficult 
and vague application, as the flowers are more lia- 
ble to vary in the number of their petals than al- 
most any other part of structure. He was the first 
