Part 6

Lactescentes: Cichorieae. Acanaceae: Cynareae, Dipsacus, Eryngium, &c.

=Pluribus Seminibus Flore communi=:

Semina plene nuda: acheniferous Ranunculaceae and Rosaceae, &c. Aut conjunctis receptaculis: e.g. Aristolochia, Nymphaea, Papaver, Cistus. Aut disjunctis receptaculis: e.g. Sedum, Veratrum, Helleborus, Delphinium, Dictamnus.

=Flore fructuque carentes=: Cryptogams.

In spite of its inherent imperfections and of errors of observation, the method succeeded in bringing together a considerable number of the plants dealt with, into groups which are still regarded as natural. For instance, among the trees and shrubs, the leguminous genera, and the coniferous genera, respectively, are so brought together: and among herbs, the leguminous, umbelliferous, cruciferous and composite genera. Moreover, though many of Cesalpino's sections consist of what seems to be a heterogeneous assemblage of plants, yet they include groups of closely allied genera, representing several of the natural orders of more modern times, which his method was incapable of distinguishing. With all its shortcomings, the method produced a classification of plants which has proved to have been natural in no slight degree.

The very numerous botanical works which were published in the century after the appearance of Cesalpino's De Plantis afford evidence that his system of classification did not meet with an enthusiastic reception. Though his plant-names were generally quoted, his arrangement was entirely ignored: in fact the very idea of classification seems to have gradually faded out of the minds of botanists, whose attention was more and more engrossed with the description of the new species that the rapid extension of geographical discovery was bringing to light. This condition of the science is well illustrated by the most authoritative systematic work that the 17th century produced, the great Pinax Theatri Botanici (1623) of Caspar Bauhin (1560-1624), a work which contains about six thousand plant-names, and was the product of forty years' labour. It might be expected that in such a work, special attention would have been paid to classification, that at least the best available system would have been used: as a matter of fact, the arrangement adopted is far inferior to that of Cesalpino and may be described as simply haphazard for the most part. The general lines of it are indicated by the following enumeration of the contents of the twelve Books of which the work consists; the modern equivalents of his plant-names being given.

SUMMARY OF THE ARRANGEMENT ADOPTED IN BAUHIN'S Pinax.

Liber I. Gramineae, Juncaceae, Cyperaceae, Typhaceae, Ephedra, Equisetum, Hippuris, Asphodelus, some Iridaceae, and Zingiberaceae.

Liber II. De Bulbosis; bulbous Monocotyledons, including Orchids with Orobanche, Monotropa, and Lathraea.

Liber III. Olera et Oleracea; most Cruciferae, Polygonaceae, and Chenopodiaceae, with some of the Compositae.

Liber IV. Other Compositae; Delphinium, Fumaria; the Umbelliferae (so named); Valeriana.

Liber V. Some Solanaceae, Papaveraceae, and Ranunculaceae; Gentiana, Plantago, Pyrola, Statice, Sarracenia, Nymphaea, Trapa, Sagittaria, Arum, Asarum, and some Compositae.

Liber VI. Viola; Cheiranthus, Matthiola, Alyssum, Hesperis; some Caryophyllaceae; Polygala, Specularia, Glaux, Linum, Cuscuta, most Labiatae and Scrophulariaceae; Primula, &c.

Liber VII. Lysimachia, Epilobium, Oenothera, Lythrum, some more Labiatae, Scrophulariaceae, and Caryophyllaceae; Boraginaceae; some Compositae; Alisma; Scabiosa; Hypericum; Crassulaceae; Aloe; Euphorbia.

Liber VIII. Various climbing plants; Convolvulus, Smilax, Humulus, Vitis; Clematis, Lonicera, Hedera; and Cucurbitaceae: also Apocynaceae, Asclepiadaceae, some Liliaceae, Malvaceae, Rosaceae, Leguminosae, with other genera scattered among them, as Aristolochia, Dentaria, Paeonia, Geranium.

Liber IX. Rubiaceae; Ruta, Thalictrum; the remainder of the Leguminosae.

Liber X. Cryptogams in general: with a few scattered Phanerogams such as Drosera, Oxalis sensitiva, L. (Herba viva foliis polypodii); Mimosa pudica (Herba Mimosa foliis Foenugraeci sylvestris); Lemna; and the remaining Compositae, the Thistles, with Eryngium, Dipsacus, and Acanthus.

Liber XI. Trees and Shrubs: Leguminous and Rosaceous; also Rhus, Laurus, Fraxinus, Juglans, Castanea, Fagus, Quercus, Corylus, Tilia, Ulmus, Betula, Alnus, Populus, Acer, Platanus, Ricinus.

Liber XII. Mespilus, Crataegus, Berberis, Ribes, Sambucus, Ficus, Opuntia, Morus, Arbutus, Laurus, Daphne, Cistus, Myrtus, Vaccinium, Buxus, Olea, Salix, Ligustrum, Phillyrea, Rhamnus, Rubus Rosa, Tamarix, Erica, Coniferous plants, Palma.

There was but one author, during this period, who made any material contribution to the science of classification, and that was Joachim Jung of Hamburg (1587-1657). Jung is best known by his Isagoge Phytoscopica (1678, ed. Vaget), the most philosophic and scientific treatise on plants that had appeared since the time of Aristotle, which is the foundation upon which the whole superstructure of plant-morphology and descriptive botany has since been erected. But it was in his De Plantis Doxoscopiae Physicae Minores (1662, ed. Fogel) that he expressed his views on systematic Botany. He did not propound a system of his own, but he sought to arrive at the principles upon which a classification should be based, with the logical result that he rejected the time-honoured Theophrastian division of plants into Trees and Herbs. Though Jung failed to produce any immediate impression upon the Botany of his time, he powerfully influenced the great developments which took place in the eighteenth century. It so happened that Ray, as he mentions in his Index Plantarum Agri Cantabrigiensis (1660), had obtained through Samuel Hartlib a MS. of the whole or part of Jung's Isagoge, which seems to have impressed him so much that he included many of Jung's morphological definitions in the glossary appended to the Index; and he subsequently embodied the Isagoge in the first volume of his Historia Plantarum (1686). It was from Ray's Historia that Linnaeus learned the morphological principles and terminology of Jung which were the basis of his own work in descriptive Botany, and rendered possible the elaboration of his system of classification. But, in spite of Jung, the venerable division of plants into Trees and Herbs continued to hold its own for a time. As will be seen, it was still adhered to by Morison and by Ray, even after it had been shown to be quite untenable by Rivinus (Introductio Generalis in Rem Herbariam) in 1690, and did not finally disappear until the time of Linnaeus.

It was just when systematic Botany had fallen back to its lowest level that Morison appeared upon the scene. He had been born at Aberdeen in 1620, and had there graduated Master of Arts with distinction by the time he was eighteen years old. His further studies in the natural sciences were interrupted by the Civil War, in which he took part on the Royalist side, being severely wounded in the battle of the Brig of Dee (1644). He fled to France, and there resumed his preparation for a scientific career with such success that he obtained, in 1648, the degree of Doctor of Medicine at the University of Angers. From that time onwards he devoted himself entirely to the study of Botany, which he pursued in Paris under the guidance of Vespasian Robin, Botanist to the King of France. In 1650 Morison was appointed by the Duke of Orleans, on Robin's recommendation, to take charge of the royal garden at Blois, a post which he held for ten years. The Duke of Orleans, shortly before his death early in 1660, had occasion to present Morison to his nephew King Charles II who was about to return to his kingdom. Soon after the Restoration, the King summoned Morison to London; and in spite of tempting offers made to induce him to remain in France, Morison obeyed the summons and was rewarded with the title of King's Physician and Professor of Botany with a stipend of two hundred pounds a year. During his tenure of these offices Morison found time to complete his first botanical work, the Praeludia Botanica, which was published in 1669; the same year in which he was appointed Professor of Botany in the University of Oxford.

A few words may be devoted, at this point, to the rise and progress of Botany in that University. In the year 1621, Lord Danvers (afterwards Earl of Danby), thinking "that his money could not be better laid out than to begin and finish a place whereby learning, especially the Faculty of Medicine, might be improved," decided to endow the University with a Physic Garden, such as was already possessed by various Universities on the Continent. With this object, he gave a sum of £250 to enable the University to purchase the lease of a plot of ground, about five acres in extent, situated "without the East Gate of Oxford, near the river Cherwell." A great deal of labour had to be expended upon the land after it had been secured: it was so low-lying that, as Anthony Wood says, "much soil was conveyed thither for the raising of the ground to prevent the overflowing of the waters" at the expense of Lord Danvers, who also caused to be built what Baskerville describes as "a most stately wall of hewen stone 14 foot high with 3 very considerable Gates thereto, one whereof was to the cost of at least five hundred pounds." The work proceeded but slowly, in consequence of the troublous times through which the country was passing, so that it was not completed until 1632. Even then the actual installation of the garden was delayed. About 1637 the Earl of Danby seems to have arranged with the well-known John Tradescant to act as gardener, but there is no evidence that Tradescant ever discharged the duties of the post: moreover, he died in the following year. Very shortly after this, though the exact date is not known, the Earl appointed Jacob Bobart to take charge of the Garden. Jacob Bobart was a German, born at Brunswick about the year 1599. He was an excellent gardener: under his care the garden flourished so well that the catalogue which was published in 1648 anonymously, though doubtless drawn up by Bobart, enumerated no less than 1600 species of plants in cultivation.

It had been the intention of Lord Danby to provide the University not only with a Physic Garden and a Gardener, but also with a Professor of Botany. For this purpose he bequeathed certain revenues: "but so it was that the times being unsettled, and the revenues falling short, nothing was done in order to the settling of a Professor till 1669." When the establishment of the Professorship had become possible, the University proceeded to elect Morison the first Professor of Botany, being influenced by the reputation which his recently published Praeludia Botanica had secured for him. Thus, after the lapse of nearly half a century, was Lord Danby's design completely realised.

Morison's chief occupation at Oxford was the preparation of his long promised magnum opus, the Historia Plantarum Universalis Oxoniensis. It was planned on a most extensive scale, and proved to be a laborious and costly undertaking. Morison impoverished himself in the preparation even of the one volume of it that appeared in his lifetime, though his many friends provided the cost of the 126 plates of figures with which it is illustrated, and the University advanced considerable sums of money. The work was to have been issued in three parts: the first part was to be devoted to Trees and Shrubs, and the other two parts to the Herbs. The volume published by Morison in 1680, and described as Pars Secunda, deals with only five out of the fifteen sections into which he classified herbaceous plants, although it extends to more than 600 folio pages. In the preface he gives as his reason for beginning with the Herbs rather than with the Trees and Shrubs, that he wished to accomplish first the most difficult part of his task lest, in the event of his death before the completion of the Historia, it should fall into the hands of incompetent persons. He did not live to finish his great undertaking. In November, 1683, he was in London on business connected with it: as he was crossing the Strand near Charing Cross, he was knocked down by a coach, and was so severely injured that he died on the following day. He was buried in the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

His unfinished work did not, as he feared, fall into incompetent hands. It was entrusted by the University to Jacob Bobart the younger, who on the death of his father in 1679, had succeeded him as Keeper of the Physic Garden, and who also succeeded Morison as Horti Praefectus, but not as Professor Botanices; the Professorship remained in abeyance for nearly forty years. After much difficulty and delay, a second and final instalment of the Historia, the Pars Tertia, dealing with the remaining ten sections of herbaceous plants, was published in 1699, as a folio of 657 pages with 168 plates. The material at Bobart's disposal was fairly abundant, consisting of Morison's MS. of four more of his sections of Herbs, with notes upon the remaining six sections. But even so, the task of completion was a laborious one, for it involved the incorporation of references to the very many descriptions of new plants that had been published since Morison's death: it has been generally admitted that Bobart discharged it with commendable skill.

Great Gate of the Physic Garden Oxford: the elder Bobart in the foreground]

The Pars Prima, that was to have been devoted to Trees and Shrubs, was never written. All that exists to represent it, is a stout MS. volume in the Library at the Botanic Garden, Oxford, apparently in Bobart's hand-writing, containing a classification and an enumeration of the species of trees and shrubs, which may possibly have been written with a view to publication.

A most interesting feature of Bobart's Pars Tertia is the Vita Roberti Morisoni M.D. with which the book opens, written by one of Morison's intimate friends, Dr Archibald Pitcairn. It is the source of all the available information regarding Morison up to the time of his coming to Oxford; after that time much may be gathered concerning him from the records of the University. It is also a loyal defence of Morison and his system of classification against the criticisms to which, even then, he had been subjected. It concludes with a personal account of Morison, in which he is described as being "vigorous in body, having a mind trained to every kind of study, of ingenuous manners, calling a spade a spade, eager for true knowledge, a despiser of filthy lucre, considering the public advantage rather than his private gain." A portrait of him, here reproduced, forms the frontispiece to the volume.