P R E F A 
C E. 
I T is probable that botany has been cultivated, in 
foine manner, in ahnoft every age of the world; 
yet fo flow is the progiels of human knowledge, 
that its eftabliflirnenc on true principles was not 
known till the laft age, and the prelent only has 
feen its near approach to perfedion. 
The works of the firlt writers on plants are lofl. 
Sacred hiftory informs us, that Soi onion (poke of 
trees, from the cedar of Lebanon, to the hylTop, or 
mols, as lome render it, that fprings out of the 
wall. Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, and other ancient 
philofophers, wrote books on plants which have 
long fince periflied, but are quoted by Xheophra- 
ftus and Pliny. 
The botanic writings of the ancients which have 
come down to our times, are tlioie of Theopiira- 
ftus, Pliny, and Diofcorides. Theophraflus, the 
difciple ot Ariftotle, and his fuccefl'or in his Ichool 
of pliilofophy at Athens, lived above three hundred 
years before the birth of Chrilt: a part only of his 
botanic works is preferved. Piiny lived in the firft 
century of the chriftian cera, and wrote largely on 
the different parts of natural hilfory. Diofcoiides 
was cotemporary with Pliny, and the principal 
writer on the materia medica a nong the ancients. 
Bur the ftate of botany was fo low in thofe times, 
and there is fuch a want of precilion in the ancient 
authors, that k is often difficult, or perhaps impof- 
a 2 lible 
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