PREFACE, 
’•I* 
va 
growth; fome by their fuppofed virtues; fome by 
their roots, and others by their leaves: Caefalpinus 
alone had diftributed them in clafles by the frudi- 
fication, till Dr. Robert Morilon. a native of Aber- 
deen in Scotland, profeffor of botany at Oxford, 
revived the fyftem in his hiitory of plants pirbiifhed 
at Oxford in 1680. 
Soon after this the fcience was itnproved by the 
labors of the great John Ray, a clergyman, of the 
univerfity of Cambridge. His Methcdus flantarum 
nova was printed in 1682; his hiftory of plants in 
threo volumes in folio, at different times, a few 
years after; and his fynopffs of Britifti plants in 1690. 
Cotemporary with him were feveral other refor- 
mers of botany; as Herman at Leyden; Rivinus at 
Leipffc; and Tournefort, who examined the fruc- 
tifications of plants with great accuracy, and efta- 
blifhed the charaders of the genera on folid prin- 
ciples, above all his predeceflbrs in the fcience. He 
publiflied his elements of botany in French at Paris 
in 1694, afterwards in Latin under the title of 
Injiitutiones ret herbaria. Among other botaniffs 
who wrote about this time were John Commelinc 
and his brother Cafpar in Flolland ; Leonard Pluke- 
net of London, a diligent collector of rare plants; 
and James Pctiver of the fame city, author of feve- 
ral voluminous works; Father Flumier who de- 
fcribed the plants of America in fc' eral treatifes 
printed at Paris; and Sir Hans Sloanc, whofe na- 
tural hiftory of Jamaica was printed at London 
in 1707, 
Kaempfcr, in his Amanltates exotica^ printed at 
Lemgow in Germany in 1712, defcribed fome of 
the ^ants of Japan and other parts of Alia; as did 
Feuillee thofe of Peru, in the journal of his travels 
in that country, printed at Paris in 1714* About this 
time farther improvements in botany were made by 
the eminent Dr. Boerhaave at Leyden ; Ifnard, Vaii- 
lant, and the two Juflieus ia France; Pontedera in 
Italy; 
