and system; without which, as we see in other botanists of his and succeeding times, the mere accumulation of a knowledge of details does not lead to any advance in science. We have already mentioned his reference to general philosophical principles, both of the Peripatetics and of his own. The first twelve chapters of his work are employed in explaining the general structure of plants, and especially that point to which he justly attaches so much importance, the results of the different situation of the cor or corculum of the seed. He shows 18 that if we take the root, or stem, or leaves, or blossom, as our guide in classification, we shall separate plants obviously alike, and approximate those which have merely superficial resemblances. And thus we see that he had in his mind ideas of fixed resemblance and symmetrical distribution, which he sedulously endeavored to apply to plants; while his acquaintance with the vegetable kingdom enabled him to see in what manner these ideas were not, and in what manner they were, really applicable. The great merit and originality of Cæsalpinus have been generally allowed, by the best of the more modern writers on Botany. Linnæus calls him one of the founders of the science; "Primus verus systematicus ;" and, as if not satisfied with the expression of his admiration in prose, hangs a poetical garland on the tomb of his hero. The following distich concludes his remarks on this writer: 19 Quisquis hic extiterit primos concedet honores and similar language of praise has been applied to him by the best botanists up to Cuvier, 20 who justly terms his book "a work of genius." Perhaps the great advance made in this science by Casalpinus, is most strongly shown by this; that no one appeared, to follow the path which he had opened to system and symmetry, for nearly a century. Moreover, when the progress of this branch of knowledge was resumed, his next successor, Morison, did not choose to acknowledge that he had borrowed so much from so old a writer; and thus, hardly mentions his name, although he takes advantage of his labors, and even transcribes his words without acknowledgement, as I shall show. The pause between the great invention of Casalpinus, and its natural sequel, the developement and improvement of his method, is so marked, that I 18 Lib. i. cap. xii. 19 Philosoph. Bot. p. 19. 20 Cuv. Hist. 193. will, in order to avoid too great an interruption of chronological order, record some of its circumstances in a separate section. Sect. 3.-Stationary Interval. THE method of Casalpinus was not, at first, generally adopted. It had, indeed, some disadvantages. Employed in drawing the boundarylines of the larger divisions of the vegetable kingdom, he had omitted those smaller groups, Genera, which were both most obvious to common botanists, and most convenient in the description and comparison of plants. He had also neglected to give the Synonyms of other authors for the plants spoken of by him; an appendage to botanical descriptions, which the increase of botanical information and botanical books had now rendered indispensable. And thus it happened, that a work, which must always be considered as forming a great epoch in the science to which it refers, was probably little read, and in a short time could be treated as if it were quite forgotten. In the mean time, the science was gradually improved in its details. Clusius, or Charles de l'Ecluse, first taught botanists to describe well. "Before him," says Mirbel,21 "the descriptions were diffuse, obscure, indistinct; or else concise, incomplete, vague. Clusius introduced exactitude, precision, neatness, elegance, method: he says nothing superfluous; he omits nothing necessary." He travelled over great part of Europe, and published various works on the more rare of the plants which he had seen. Among such plants, we may note now one well known, the potato; which he describes as being commonly used in Italy in 1586;22 thus throwing doubt, at least, on the opinion which ascribes the first introduction of it into Europe to Sir Walter Raleigh, on his return from Virginia, about the same period. As serving to illustrate, both this point, and the descriptive style of Clusius, I quote, in a note, his description of the flower of this plant.2 21 Physiol. Veg. p. 525. 23 (6 23 22 Clusius. Exotic. iv. c. 52, p. lxxix. Papas Peruanorum. Arachidna, Theoph. forte. Flores elegantes, uncialis amplitudinis aut majores, angulosi, singulari folio constantes, sed ita complicato ut quinque folia discreta videantur, coloris exterius ex purpura candicantis, interius purpurascentis, radiis quinque herbaceis ex umbilico stellæ instar prodeuntibus, et totidem staminibus flavis in umbonem coeuntibus." He says that the Italians do not know whence they had the plant, and that they call it Taratouffli. The name Potato was, in England, previously applied to the Sweet Potato (Convolvulus batatas), which was the common Potato, in The addition of exotic species to the number of known plants was indeed going on rapidly during the interval which we are now considering. Francis Hernandez, a Spaniard, who visited America towards the end of the sixteenth century, collected and described many plants of that country, some of which were afterwards published by Recchi.24 Barnabas Cobo, who went as a missionary to America in 1596, also described plants.25 The Dutch, among other exertions which they made in their struggle with the tyranny of Spain, sent out an expedition which, for a time, conquered the Brazils; and among other fruits of this conquest, they published an account of the natural history of the country.26 To avoid interrupting the connexion of such labors, I will here carry them on a little further in the order of time. Paul Herman, of Halle, in Saxony, went to the Cape of Good Hope and to Ceylon; and on his return, astonished the botanists of Europe by the vast quantity of remarkable plants which he introduced to their knowledge.27 Rheede, the Dutch governor of Malabar, ordered descriptions and drawings to be made of many curious species, which were published in a large work in twelve folio volumes.28 Rumphe, another Dutch consul at Amboyna," labored with zeal and success upon the plants of the Moluccas. Some species which occur in Madagascar figured in a description of that island composed by the French Commandant Flacourt.30 Shortly afterwards, Engelbert Kæmpfer, a Westphalian of great acquirements and undaunted courage, visited Persia, Arabia Felix, the Mogul Empire, Ceylon, Bengal, Sumatra, Java, Siam, Japan; Wheler travelled in Greece and Asia Minor; and Sherard, the English consul, published an account of the plants of the neighborhood of Smyrna. 31 distinction to the Virginian Potato, at the time of Gerard's Herbal. (1597?) Gerard's figures of both plants are copied from those of Clusius. It may be seen by the description of Arachidna, already quoted from Theophrastus, (above,) that there is little plausibility in Clusius's conjecture of the plant being known to the ancients. I need not inform the botanist that this opinion is untenable. 24 Nova Plantarum Regni Mexicana Historia, Rom. 1651, fol. 25 Sprengel, Gesch. der Botanik, ii. 62. 26 Historia Naturalis Brasiliæ, L. B. 1648, fol. (Piso and Marcgraf). 27 Museum Zeylanicum, L. B. 1726. 28 Hortus Malabaricus, 1670-1703. 29 Herbarium Amboinense, Amsterdam, 1741-51, fol. 30 Histoire de la grande Isle Madagascar, Paris, 1661. 81 Amanitates Exotica, Lemgov. 1712. 4to. At the same time, the New World excited also the curiosity of botanists. Hans Sloane collected the plants of Jamaica; John Banister those of Virginia; William Vernon, also an Englishman, and David Kriege, a Saxon, those of Maryland; two Frenchmen, Surian and Father Plumier, those of Saint Domingo. We e may add that public botanical gardens were about this time established all over Europe. We have already noticed the institution of that of Pisa in 1543; the second was that of Padua in 1545; the next, that of Florence in 1556; the fourth, that of Bologna, 1568; that of Rome, in the Vatican, dates also from 1568. The first transalpine garden of this kind arose at Leyden in 1577; that of Leipzig in 1580. Henry the Fourth of France established one at Montpellier in 1597. Several others were instituted in Germany; but that of Paris did not begin to exist till 1626; that of Upsal, afterwards so celebrated, took its rise in 1657, that of Amsterdam in 1684. Morison, whom we shall soon have to mention, calls himself, in 1680, the first Director of the Botanical Garden at Oxford. [2nd Ed.] [To what is above said of Botanical Gardens and Botanical Writers, between the times of Casalpinus and Morison, I may add a few circumstances. The first academical garden in France was that at Montpellier, which was established by Peter Richier de Belleval, at the end of the sixteenth century. About the same period, rare flowers were cultivated at Paris, and pictures of them made, in order to supply the embroiderers of the court-robes with new patterns. Thus figures of the most beautiful flowers in the garden of Peter Robins were published by the court-embroiderer Peter Vallet, in 1608, under the title of Le Jardin du Roi Henry IV. But Robins' works were of great service to botany; and his garden assisted the studies of Renealmus (Paul Reneaulme), whose Specimen Historia Plantarum (Paris, 1611), is highly spoken of by the best botanists. Recently, Mr. Robert Brown has named after him a new genus of Iridec (RENEALMIA); adding, "Dixi in memoriam PAULI RENEALMI, botanici sui ævi accuratissimi, atque staminum primi scrutatoris; qui non modo eorum numerum et situm, sed etiam filamentorum proportionem passim descripsit, et characterem tetradynamicum siliquosarum perspexit." (Prodromus Flora Nova Hollandiæ, p. 448.) The oldest Botanical Garden in England is that at Hampton Court, founded by Queen Elizabeth, and much enriched by Charles II. and William III. (Sprengel, Gesch. d. Bot. vol. ii. p. 96.)] In the mean time, although there appeared no new system which commanded the attention of the botanical world, the feeling of the importance of the affinities of plants became continually more strong and distinct. Lobel, who was botanist to James the First, and who published his Stirpium Adversaria Nova in 1571, brings together the natural families of plants more distinctly than his predecessors, and even distinguishes (as Cuvier states,92) monocotyledonous from dicotyledonous plants; one of the most comprehensive division-lines of botany, of which succeeding times discovered the value more completely. Fabius Columna," in 1616, gave figures of the fructification of plants on copper, as Gessner had before done on wood. But the elder Bauhin (John), notwithstanding all that Casalpinus had done, retrograded, in a work published in 1619, into the less precise and scientific distinctions of-trees with nuts; with berries; with acorns; with pods; creeping plants, gourds, &c.: and no clear progress towards a system was anywhere visible among the authors of this period. While this continued to be the case, and while the materials, thus destitute of order, went on accumulating, it was inevitable that the evils which Casalpinus had endeavored to remedy, should become more and more grievous. "The nomenclature of the subject34 was in such disorder, it was so impossible to determine with certainty the plants spoken of by preceding writers, that thirty or forty different botanists had given to the same plant almost as many different names. Bauhin called by one appellation, a species which Lobel or Matheoli designated by another. There was an actual chaos, a universal confusion, in which it was impossible for men to find their way." We can the better understand such a state of things, from having, in our own time, seen another classificatory science, Mineralogy, in the very condition thus described. For such a state of confusion there is no remedy but the establishment of a true system of classification; which by its real foundation renders a reason for the place of each species; and which, by the fixity of its classes, affords a basis for a standard nomenclature, as finally took place in Botany. But before such a remedy is obtained, men naturally try to alleviate the evil by tabulating the synonyms of different writers, as far as they are able to do so. The task of constructing such a Synonymy of botany at the period of which we speak, was undertaken by Gaspard Bauhin, the brother of John, but nineteen years younger. This work, the Pinax Theatri Botanici, was printed 32 Cuv. Leçons, &c. 198. 33 Ib. 206. 34 Ib. 212. |