Post by Rik Wallin on Apr 6, 2007 12:08:28 GMT -6
Rare Botany Literature From the Year 1892
BOTANY
The science of Botany includes everything relating to the Vegetable Kingdom, whether in a living or in a fossil state. Its object is not, as some have supposed, merely to name and arrange the vegetable productions of the globe. It embraces a consideration of the external forms of plants - of their anatomical structure, however minute - of the functions which they perform - of their arrangement and classification - of their distribution over the globe at the present and at former epochs - and of the uses to which they are subservient. It examines the plant in its earliest state of development, when it appears as a simple cell, and follows it through all its stages of progress until it attains maturity. It takes a comprehensive view of all the plants which cover the earth, from the minutest lichen or moss, only visible by the aid of the microscope, to the most gigantic productions of the tropics. It marks the relations which subsist between all members of the vegetable world, and traces the mode in which the most despised weeds contribute to the growth of the mighty denizens of the forest.
The plants which adorn the globe more or less in all countries must necessarily have attracted the attention of mankind from the earliest times. The science that treats of them dates back to the days of Solomen, for that wise monarch "spake of trees," from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks were the early cultivators of science, and Botany was not neglected, although the study of it was mixed up with crude speculations as to vegetable life, and as to the change of plants into animals. Aesculapius and his priests, the Asclepiades, who studied the art of medicine, had their attention directed to plants in a pharmaceutical point of view. About 300 years before Christ
Theophrastus wrote a History of plants, and described about 500 species used for the treatment of diseases. Dioscorides, a Greek writer, who appears to have flourished about the time of Nero, issued a work on Materia Medica. The elder Pliny described about a thousand plants, many of them famous for their medicinal virtues. Asiatic and Arabian writers also took up this subject. Little, however, was done in the science of Botany, properly so called, until the 16th century of the Christian era, when the revival of learning dispelled the darkness which had long hung over Europe. Brunfels, a physician of Bern, has been looked upon as the restorer of the science in Europe. He published a History of Plants, illustrated by figures, about the beginning of the 16th century.
One of the earliest attempts at a methodical arrangement of plants was made in Florence by Andrea's Caesalpinus, a native of Arezzo, some time professor of Botany at Padua, and afterwards physician to Pope Clement VIII.
He is called by Linnaeus primus verus systematicus. In his work De Plantis, published at lorence in 1583, he distributed the 1520 plants then known into fifteen classes - the distinguishing characteristics being from the fruits.
John Ray, a native of essex, did much to advance the science of botany. He was born in 1628, and died in 1705. He promulgated a system which may be considered as the dawn of the "natural system" of the present day (Ray, Methodus Plantarum, 1682). He separated flowering from flowerless plants, and divided the former into Dicotyledona and Monocotyledons. His orders were founded on a correct idea of the affinities of plants, and he far outstripped his contempories in his enlightened views of arrangement.
About the year 1670 Dr. Robert Morison of Aberdeen (Proeludia Botanica, 1672; Plantarium Historia Universalis, 1680) published a systematic arrangement of plants. He divided them into eighteen classes, distinguishing plants according as they were woody or herbaceous, and taking into account the nature of the flowers and fruit. In 1690 Rivinus ((Augustus Quirinus) paterno nomine Bachmann,
Introductio generalis in Rem Herbariam, Lipsiae, 1690). promulgated a classification founded chiefly on the forms of the flowers. Tournefort (Elemens de Botanique, 1694; Institutions Re Herbariae, 1700.) about the same time took up the subject of vegetable taxonomy. He was a contempory of Ray, and was professor of botany at Paris in 1683. He was long at the head of the French school of botany, and published a systematic arrangement in 1694-1700. He described about 8000 species of plants, and distributed them into twenty two classes, chiefly according to the form of the corolla, distinguishing herbs and under-shrubs on the one hand from the trees and shrubs on the other. The system of Tournefort was for a long time adopted on the continent, but was ultimately displaced by that of Linnaeus.
Carl von Linne, or, as he is commonly called, Linnaeus (System Naturae, 1735; Genera Plantarum, 1737; Philosophia Botanica, 1751; Species Plantarum, 1753) was born on the 23rd of May 1707, at the village of Rooahoolt (Rashult), in Smaland, a province of Sweden, where his father, Nicholas Linnaeus, was clergyman. He entered as a pupil at the University of Lund, and about the years 1727-28 was recieved into the house of Stobaeus, a physician in that city, where he had to struggle with great difficulties during his studies there. He aided Celsius in his Hierobotanicon. or account of the plants of the scripture, and he became assistant to Rudbeck, professor of botany. He afterwards travelled in Lapland, took his degree in Holland, visited England, and commenced practice in Stockholm, where he lectured on botany and mineralogy. He finally became professor of botany at Upsal, and was one of the most popular lecturers of the day. He died on the 8th of January 1778, in the 71st year of his age. His herbarium is now in the possession of the Linnean Society. One of his biographers, in summing up his merits, says, - "Educated in the severe school of adversity, accustomed from his earliest youth to put a high value on verbal accuracy and logical precision, endowed with a powerful understanding, and capable of undergoing immense fatigue, both of body and mind, Linnaeus produced a most important revolution in botanical science. He improved the distinctions of genera and species, introduced a better nomenclature on the binomial method, and invented a new and comprehensive system founded on the stamens and pistils. His verbal accuracy and the remarkable terseness of his technical language reduced the crude matter that was stored up in the folios of his predecessors into a form which was accessable to all men. He separated with singular skill the important from the unimportant in their descriptions. He arranged their endless synonyms with a patience and a lucid order that were quite inimitable. By requiring all species to be capable of a rigorous definition, not exceding twelve words, he purified botany from the endless varieties of the gardeners and herbalists; and by applying the same strict principles to genera, and reducing every character to its differential terms, he got rid of the cumberous descriptions of old writers. It is said of Linnaeus, that, although no man of science ever exercised a greater way, or had more enthusiastic admirers, yet his merit was not so much that of a discoverer as of a judicious and strenuous reformer. The knowledge which he displayed, and the value and simplicity of the improvements which he proposed, secured the universal adoption of his suggestions, and crowned him with a success altogether unparalled in the annals of the science."
The system of Linnaeus is founded on the sexes of plants, and hence it is often denominated the sexual system. It is called an artificial method, because it takes into account only a few marked characters in plants, and does not propose to unite them by natural affinities. It is an index to a department of the book of nature, and as such is useful to the student. It does not aspire to any higher charactor, and although it cannot be looked upon as a scientific and natural arrangement, still it has a certain facility of application which comends it to the tyro. In using it however, let it ever be remembered, that it will not of itself give the student any view of the true relations of plants as regards structure and properties, and that by leading to the discovery of the name of the plant, it is only a stepping stone to the natural system. Linnaeus himself claimed claimed nothing higher for it. He says - "Methodi Naturalis fragmenta studiose inquirenda sunt. Primum et ultimum hoc in botanicis desideratum est. Natura non facit saltus. Plantae omnes utrinque affinitatem monstrant, uti territorium in mappa geographica". Accordingly, besides his artificial index, he also promulgated fragments of a natural method of arrangement.
The Linnean system was strongly supported by Sir James Edward Smith, who adopted it in his English Flora, and who also became possessor of the Linnean collection. The system was for a long time the only one taught in the schools of Britain, even after it had been discarded by those in France and in many other Continental countries.
The foundation of Botanic Gardens during the 16th centuries did much in the way of advancing botany. They were at first appropriated chiefly to the cultivation of medicinal plants. This was especially the case at universities, where medical schools existed. The first Botanic Garden was established at Padua in 1545, and was followed by that of Pisa. The garden at Leyden dates from 1577, that at Leipsic from 1579. Gardens also early existed at Florence and Bologna. The Montpellier Garden was founded in 1592, that of Giessen in 1605, of Strasburg in 1620, of Altorf in 1625, and of Jena in 1629. The Jardin des Plantes at Paris was established in 1626, and the Upsal Garden in 1627. The Botanic Garden at Oxford was founded in 1632. The garden at Edinburgh was founded by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald in 1670, and, under the name of the Physic Garden, was placed under the superintendence of James Sutherland, afterwards professor of botany in the university. The park and garden at Kew date from about 1730. The garden of the Royal Dublin Society at Glasnevin was opened about 1796; that of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1807; and that of Glasgow in 1818. The Madrid Garden dates from 1763, and that of Coimbra from 1773. Gesner states that at the end of the 18th century there were 1600 Botanic Gardens in Europe.
A new era dawned on botanical classification when Antoine Laurent de Jussieu appeared. He was born at Lyons in 1748, and was educated at Paris under the care of his uncle, Bernard de Jussieu. At an early age he became botanical demonstrator in the Jardin des Plantes, and was thus led to devote his time to the science of botany. Being called upon to arrange the plants in the garden, he necessarily had to consider the best method of doing so, and adopted a system founded in a certain degree on that of Ray, in which he embraced all the discoveries in organography, adopted the simplicity of the Linnean definitions, and displayed the natural affinities of plants. His Genera Plantarum, begun in 1778, and finally published in 1789, indicated an important advance in the principle of classification. Jussieu subsequently became professor of rural botany; he died in 1836 at the age of 88.
The system of Jussiea made its way slowly in Great Britain, and it was not until Robert Brown brought it under notice that it was adopted (Brown, Prodomus Florce NovaeHollandiae, 1810) It is now the basis of all natural classifications. One of the early Supporters of this natural method was Augustin Pyrame De Candolle, who was born in 1778, and who, after attending the lectures of Vaucher at Geneva, devoted himself to botanical pursuits. He subsequently prosecuted his studies at Paris, and lectured on botany at the College of France. He commenced his publications in 1802, and in 1804 he promulgated his Elementary Principles of Botany. In 1807 he became professor of botany at Montpellier, and in 1816 he was appointed to the chair of natural history at
Geneva, with the charge of the Botanic Garden. In that city he carried on his future botanical labours, and began his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, which was intended to embrace an arrangement and description of all known plants. He was enabled to complete eight Volumes of the work before his death, and it has Since been carried on by his son Alphonse De Candolle, with the aid of other eminent botanists. It now embraces descriptions of the genera and species of Dicotyledonous plants. The system followed by De Candolle is a modification of that of Jussieu, and it is adopted more or less at the present day. De Candolle's own herbarium was extremely rich. He had visited and carefully examined many of the most extensive collections, especially those of Paris; and many entire collections, as well as separate families, on which he was Specially engaged, were from time to time submitted to his examination by their possessors He had thus opportunities of comparison greatly beyond what in ordinary circumstances fall to the lot of an individual.
His library, too, was stored with almost every important publication that could be required for his undertaking. With such ample materials, aided by his untiring zeal and the persevering energy of his character, he steadily pursued his allotted task, and only ceased to labour at it when he ceased to live. For some years his health declined, and it is to be feared that the severe and incessant attention which he paid to the elaboration of the great family of Compositae had made a deep inroad upon it. As a relaxation from his labours he undertook in the last years of his life a long journey, and attended the scientific meeting held at Turin; but he did not derive from this the anticipated improvement in his health, which gradually failed some until his death on the 9th September 1841. Since De Candolle's time various modifications of his system have been introduced by Endlicher, Lindley, Hooker, and Bentham.
In arranging plants according to a natural method, we require to have a thorough knowledge of structural and morphological botany, and hence we find that the advances made in these departments have materially aided the efforts of systematic botanists. Robert Brown, a Scottish botanist, was the first in this country to support and advocate,the natural system of classification. The publication of his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, according to the natural method, led the way to the adoption of that method in the universities and schools of Britain. Sir William (then Dr) Hooker, in his prelections in the University of Glasgow, and in his Numerous writings, ably supported Brown. John Lindley also came into the field, and in 1830 published the first edition of his Introduction to the Natural System. Dr Robert Kaye Greville and Dr Walker Arnott were able coadjutors, more especially in the department of Cryptogamic Botany. From the year 1832 up to 1859 great advances were made in systematic botany, both in Britain and on the continent of Europe. Endlicher's Enchiridion and Genera Plantarum, De Candolle's Prodromus, and Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom became the guides in systematic botany, according to the natural system.
BOTANY
The science of Botany includes everything relating to the Vegetable Kingdom, whether in a living or in a fossil state. Its object is not, as some have supposed, merely to name and arrange the vegetable productions of the globe. It embraces a consideration of the external forms of plants - of their anatomical structure, however minute - of the functions which they perform - of their arrangement and classification - of their distribution over the globe at the present and at former epochs - and of the uses to which they are subservient. It examines the plant in its earliest state of development, when it appears as a simple cell, and follows it through all its stages of progress until it attains maturity. It takes a comprehensive view of all the plants which cover the earth, from the minutest lichen or moss, only visible by the aid of the microscope, to the most gigantic productions of the tropics. It marks the relations which subsist between all members of the vegetable world, and traces the mode in which the most despised weeds contribute to the growth of the mighty denizens of the forest.
The plants which adorn the globe more or less in all countries must necessarily have attracted the attention of mankind from the earliest times. The science that treats of them dates back to the days of Solomen, for that wise monarch "spake of trees," from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the wall. The Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Greeks were the early cultivators of science, and Botany was not neglected, although the study of it was mixed up with crude speculations as to vegetable life, and as to the change of plants into animals. Aesculapius and his priests, the Asclepiades, who studied the art of medicine, had their attention directed to plants in a pharmaceutical point of view. About 300 years before Christ
Theophrastus wrote a History of plants, and described about 500 species used for the treatment of diseases. Dioscorides, a Greek writer, who appears to have flourished about the time of Nero, issued a work on Materia Medica. The elder Pliny described about a thousand plants, many of them famous for their medicinal virtues. Asiatic and Arabian writers also took up this subject. Little, however, was done in the science of Botany, properly so called, until the 16th century of the Christian era, when the revival of learning dispelled the darkness which had long hung over Europe. Brunfels, a physician of Bern, has been looked upon as the restorer of the science in Europe. He published a History of Plants, illustrated by figures, about the beginning of the 16th century.
One of the earliest attempts at a methodical arrangement of plants was made in Florence by Andrea's Caesalpinus, a native of Arezzo, some time professor of Botany at Padua, and afterwards physician to Pope Clement VIII.
He is called by Linnaeus primus verus systematicus. In his work De Plantis, published at lorence in 1583, he distributed the 1520 plants then known into fifteen classes - the distinguishing characteristics being from the fruits.
John Ray, a native of essex, did much to advance the science of botany. He was born in 1628, and died in 1705. He promulgated a system which may be considered as the dawn of the "natural system" of the present day (Ray, Methodus Plantarum, 1682). He separated flowering from flowerless plants, and divided the former into Dicotyledona and Monocotyledons. His orders were founded on a correct idea of the affinities of plants, and he far outstripped his contempories in his enlightened views of arrangement.
About the year 1670 Dr. Robert Morison of Aberdeen (Proeludia Botanica, 1672; Plantarium Historia Universalis, 1680) published a systematic arrangement of plants. He divided them into eighteen classes, distinguishing plants according as they were woody or herbaceous, and taking into account the nature of the flowers and fruit. In 1690 Rivinus ((Augustus Quirinus) paterno nomine Bachmann,
Introductio generalis in Rem Herbariam, Lipsiae, 1690). promulgated a classification founded chiefly on the forms of the flowers. Tournefort (Elemens de Botanique, 1694; Institutions Re Herbariae, 1700.) about the same time took up the subject of vegetable taxonomy. He was a contempory of Ray, and was professor of botany at Paris in 1683. He was long at the head of the French school of botany, and published a systematic arrangement in 1694-1700. He described about 8000 species of plants, and distributed them into twenty two classes, chiefly according to the form of the corolla, distinguishing herbs and under-shrubs on the one hand from the trees and shrubs on the other. The system of Tournefort was for a long time adopted on the continent, but was ultimately displaced by that of Linnaeus.
Carl von Linne, or, as he is commonly called, Linnaeus (System Naturae, 1735; Genera Plantarum, 1737; Philosophia Botanica, 1751; Species Plantarum, 1753) was born on the 23rd of May 1707, at the village of Rooahoolt (Rashult), in Smaland, a province of Sweden, where his father, Nicholas Linnaeus, was clergyman. He entered as a pupil at the University of Lund, and about the years 1727-28 was recieved into the house of Stobaeus, a physician in that city, where he had to struggle with great difficulties during his studies there. He aided Celsius in his Hierobotanicon. or account of the plants of the scripture, and he became assistant to Rudbeck, professor of botany. He afterwards travelled in Lapland, took his degree in Holland, visited England, and commenced practice in Stockholm, where he lectured on botany and mineralogy. He finally became professor of botany at Upsal, and was one of the most popular lecturers of the day. He died on the 8th of January 1778, in the 71st year of his age. His herbarium is now in the possession of the Linnean Society. One of his biographers, in summing up his merits, says, - "Educated in the severe school of adversity, accustomed from his earliest youth to put a high value on verbal accuracy and logical precision, endowed with a powerful understanding, and capable of undergoing immense fatigue, both of body and mind, Linnaeus produced a most important revolution in botanical science. He improved the distinctions of genera and species, introduced a better nomenclature on the binomial method, and invented a new and comprehensive system founded on the stamens and pistils. His verbal accuracy and the remarkable terseness of his technical language reduced the crude matter that was stored up in the folios of his predecessors into a form which was accessable to all men. He separated with singular skill the important from the unimportant in their descriptions. He arranged their endless synonyms with a patience and a lucid order that were quite inimitable. By requiring all species to be capable of a rigorous definition, not exceding twelve words, he purified botany from the endless varieties of the gardeners and herbalists; and by applying the same strict principles to genera, and reducing every character to its differential terms, he got rid of the cumberous descriptions of old writers. It is said of Linnaeus, that, although no man of science ever exercised a greater way, or had more enthusiastic admirers, yet his merit was not so much that of a discoverer as of a judicious and strenuous reformer. The knowledge which he displayed, and the value and simplicity of the improvements which he proposed, secured the universal adoption of his suggestions, and crowned him with a success altogether unparalled in the annals of the science."
The system of Linnaeus is founded on the sexes of plants, and hence it is often denominated the sexual system. It is called an artificial method, because it takes into account only a few marked characters in plants, and does not propose to unite them by natural affinities. It is an index to a department of the book of nature, and as such is useful to the student. It does not aspire to any higher charactor, and although it cannot be looked upon as a scientific and natural arrangement, still it has a certain facility of application which comends it to the tyro. In using it however, let it ever be remembered, that it will not of itself give the student any view of the true relations of plants as regards structure and properties, and that by leading to the discovery of the name of the plant, it is only a stepping stone to the natural system. Linnaeus himself claimed claimed nothing higher for it. He says - "Methodi Naturalis fragmenta studiose inquirenda sunt. Primum et ultimum hoc in botanicis desideratum est. Natura non facit saltus. Plantae omnes utrinque affinitatem monstrant, uti territorium in mappa geographica". Accordingly, besides his artificial index, he also promulgated fragments of a natural method of arrangement.
The Linnean system was strongly supported by Sir James Edward Smith, who adopted it in his English Flora, and who also became possessor of the Linnean collection. The system was for a long time the only one taught in the schools of Britain, even after it had been discarded by those in France and in many other Continental countries.
The foundation of Botanic Gardens during the 16th centuries did much in the way of advancing botany. They were at first appropriated chiefly to the cultivation of medicinal plants. This was especially the case at universities, where medical schools existed. The first Botanic Garden was established at Padua in 1545, and was followed by that of Pisa. The garden at Leyden dates from 1577, that at Leipsic from 1579. Gardens also early existed at Florence and Bologna. The Montpellier Garden was founded in 1592, that of Giessen in 1605, of Strasburg in 1620, of Altorf in 1625, and of Jena in 1629. The Jardin des Plantes at Paris was established in 1626, and the Upsal Garden in 1627. The Botanic Garden at Oxford was founded in 1632. The garden at Edinburgh was founded by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald in 1670, and, under the name of the Physic Garden, was placed under the superintendence of James Sutherland, afterwards professor of botany in the university. The park and garden at Kew date from about 1730. The garden of the Royal Dublin Society at Glasnevin was opened about 1796; that of Trinity College, Dublin, in 1807; and that of Glasgow in 1818. The Madrid Garden dates from 1763, and that of Coimbra from 1773. Gesner states that at the end of the 18th century there were 1600 Botanic Gardens in Europe.
A new era dawned on botanical classification when Antoine Laurent de Jussieu appeared. He was born at Lyons in 1748, and was educated at Paris under the care of his uncle, Bernard de Jussieu. At an early age he became botanical demonstrator in the Jardin des Plantes, and was thus led to devote his time to the science of botany. Being called upon to arrange the plants in the garden, he necessarily had to consider the best method of doing so, and adopted a system founded in a certain degree on that of Ray, in which he embraced all the discoveries in organography, adopted the simplicity of the Linnean definitions, and displayed the natural affinities of plants. His Genera Plantarum, begun in 1778, and finally published in 1789, indicated an important advance in the principle of classification. Jussieu subsequently became professor of rural botany; he died in 1836 at the age of 88.
The system of Jussiea made its way slowly in Great Britain, and it was not until Robert Brown brought it under notice that it was adopted (Brown, Prodomus Florce NovaeHollandiae, 1810) It is now the basis of all natural classifications. One of the early Supporters of this natural method was Augustin Pyrame De Candolle, who was born in 1778, and who, after attending the lectures of Vaucher at Geneva, devoted himself to botanical pursuits. He subsequently prosecuted his studies at Paris, and lectured on botany at the College of France. He commenced his publications in 1802, and in 1804 he promulgated his Elementary Principles of Botany. In 1807 he became professor of botany at Montpellier, and in 1816 he was appointed to the chair of natural history at
Geneva, with the charge of the Botanic Garden. In that city he carried on his future botanical labours, and began his Prodromus Systematis Naturalis Regni Vegetabilis, which was intended to embrace an arrangement and description of all known plants. He was enabled to complete eight Volumes of the work before his death, and it has Since been carried on by his son Alphonse De Candolle, with the aid of other eminent botanists. It now embraces descriptions of the genera and species of Dicotyledonous plants. The system followed by De Candolle is a modification of that of Jussieu, and it is adopted more or less at the present day. De Candolle's own herbarium was extremely rich. He had visited and carefully examined many of the most extensive collections, especially those of Paris; and many entire collections, as well as separate families, on which he was Specially engaged, were from time to time submitted to his examination by their possessors He had thus opportunities of comparison greatly beyond what in ordinary circumstances fall to the lot of an individual.
His library, too, was stored with almost every important publication that could be required for his undertaking. With such ample materials, aided by his untiring zeal and the persevering energy of his character, he steadily pursued his allotted task, and only ceased to labour at it when he ceased to live. For some years his health declined, and it is to be feared that the severe and incessant attention which he paid to the elaboration of the great family of Compositae had made a deep inroad upon it. As a relaxation from his labours he undertook in the last years of his life a long journey, and attended the scientific meeting held at Turin; but he did not derive from this the anticipated improvement in his health, which gradually failed some until his death on the 9th September 1841. Since De Candolle's time various modifications of his system have been introduced by Endlicher, Lindley, Hooker, and Bentham.
In arranging plants according to a natural method, we require to have a thorough knowledge of structural and morphological botany, and hence we find that the advances made in these departments have materially aided the efforts of systematic botanists. Robert Brown, a Scottish botanist, was the first in this country to support and advocate,the natural system of classification. The publication of his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae, according to the natural method, led the way to the adoption of that method in the universities and schools of Britain. Sir William (then Dr) Hooker, in his prelections in the University of Glasgow, and in his Numerous writings, ably supported Brown. John Lindley also came into the field, and in 1830 published the first edition of his Introduction to the Natural System. Dr Robert Kaye Greville and Dr Walker Arnott were able coadjutors, more especially in the department of Cryptogamic Botany. From the year 1832 up to 1859 great advances were made in systematic botany, both in Britain and on the continent of Europe. Endlicher's Enchiridion and Genera Plantarum, De Candolle's Prodromus, and Lindley's Vegetable Kingdom became the guides in systematic botany, according to the natural system.