[CONTENTS.]

[FIRST BOOK].
History of Morphology and Classification.
1530-1860.
PAGE
Introduction[3]
[CHAPTER I].
The Botanists of Germany and the Netherlands from Brunfels to Caspar Bauhin, 1530-1623[13]
[CHAPTER II].
Artificial Systems and Terminology of Organs from Cesalpino to Linnaeus, 1583-1760[37]
[CHAPTER III].
Development of the Natural System under the Influence of the Dogma of the Constancy of Species, 1759-1850[108]
[CHAPTER IV].
Morphology under the Influence of the Doctrine of Metamorphosis and of the Spiral Theory, 1790-1850[155]
[CHAPTER V].
Morphology and Systematic Botany under the Influence of the History of Development and the knowledge of the Cryptogams, 1840-1860182
[SECOND BOOK].
History of Vegetable Anatomy.
1671-1860.
Introduction[219]
[CHAPTER I].
Phytotomy founded by Malpighi and Grew, 1671-1682[229]
[CHAPTER II].
Phytotomy in the Eighteenth Century[246]
[CHAPTER III].
Examination of the Matured Framework of Cell-Membrane in Plants, 1800-1840[256]
[CHAPTER IV].
History of Development of the Cell, Formation of Tissues, Molecular Structure of Organised Forms, 1840-1860[311]
[THIRD BOOK].
History of Vegetable Physiology.
1583-1860.
Introduction[359]
[CHAPTER I].
History of the Sexual Theory
1. From Aristotle to R. J. Camerarius[376]
2. Establishment of the Doctrine of Sexuality in Plants by R. J.Camerarius, 1691-1694[385]
3. Dissemination of the New Doctrine; its Adherents and Opponents, 1700-1760[390]
4. The Theory of Evolution and Epigenesis[402]
5. Further Development of the Sexual Theory by J. G. Koelreuter and Konrad Sprengel, 1761-1793[406]
6. New opponents of Sexuality and their refutation by Experiments, 1785-1849[422]
7. Microscopic Investigation into the Processes of Fertilisation in the Phanerogams, the Pollen-Tube and Eggs, 1830-1850[431]
8. Discovery of Sexuality in the Cryptogams, 1837-1860[436]
[CHAPTER II].
History of the Theory of Nutrition of Plants, 1583-1860[445]
1. Cesalpino, 1583[450]
2. First Inductive Experiments and Opening of New Points of View in the History of the Theory of the Nutrition of Plants, to 1730[453]
3. Fruitless Attempts to Explain the Movement of the Sap in Plants, 1730-1780[482]
4. The Modern Theory of Nutrition Founded by Ingen-Houss and Theodore de Saussure, 1779-1804[491]
5. Vital Force. Respiration and Heat of Plants. Endosmose, 1804-1840[504]
6. Settlement of the Question of Food-Material of Plants, 1840-1860[524]
[CHAPTER III].
History of Phytodynamics
From end of 17th century to about 1860[535]
[Index][565]

[ERRATA.]

[FIRST BOOK]
HISTORY OF MORPHOLOGY AND CLASSIFICATION
(1530-1860)

[INTRODUCTION.]

The authors of the oldest herbals of the 16th century, Brunfels, Fuchs, Bock, Mattioli and others, regarded plants mainly as the vehicles of medicinal virtues; to them plants were the ingredients in compound medicines, and were therefore by preference termed ‘simplicia,’ simple constituents of medicaments. Their chief object was to discover the plants employed by the physicians of antiquity, the knowledge of which had been lost in later times. The corrupt texts of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny and Galen had been in many respects improved and illustrated by the critical labours of the Italian commentators of the 15th and of the early part of the 16th century; but there was one imperfection which no criticism could remove,—the highly unsatisfactory descriptions of the old authors or the entire absence of descriptions. It was moreover at first assumed that the plants described by the Greek physicians must grow wild in Germany also, and generally in the rest of Europe; each author identified a different native plant with some one mentioned by Dioscorides or Theophrastus or others, and thus there arose as early as the 16th century a confusion of nomenclature which it was scarcely possible to clear away. As compared with the efforts of the philological commentators, who knew little of plants from their own observation, a great advance was made by the first German composers of herbals, who went straight to nature, described the wild plants growing around them and had figures of them carefully executed in wood. Thus was made the first beginning of a really scientific examination of plants, though the aims pursued were not yet truly scientific, for no questions were proposed as to the nature of plants, their organisation or mutual relations; the only point of interest was the knowledge of individual forms and of their medicinal virtues.

The descriptions were at first extremely inartistic and unmethodical; but the effort to make them as exact and clear as was possible led from time to time to perceptions of truth, that came unsought and lay far removed from the object originally in view. It was remarked that many of the plants which Dioscorides had described in his Materia Medica do not grow wild in Germany, France, Spain, and England, and that conversely very many plants grow in these countries, which were evidently unknown to the ancient writers; it became apparent at the same time that many plants have points of resemblance to one another, which have nothing to do with their medicinal powers or with their importance to agriculture and the arts. In the effort to promote the knowledge of plants for practical purposes by careful description of individual forms, the impression forced itself on the mind of the observer, that there are various natural groups of plants which have a distinct resemblance to one another in form and in other characteristics. It was seen that there were other natural alliances in the vegetable world, beside the three great divisions of trees, shrubs, and herbs adopted by Aristotle and Theophrastus. The first perception of natural groups is to be found in Bock, and later herbals show that the natural connection between such plants as occur together in the groups of Fungi, Mosses, Ferns, Coniferae, Umbelliferae, Compositae, Labiatae, Papilionaceae was distinctly felt, though it was by no means clearly understood how this connection was actually expressed; the fact of natural affinity presented itself unsought as an incidental and indefinite impression, to which no great value was at first attached. The recognition of these groups required no antecedent philosophic reflection or conscious attempt to classify the objects in the vegetable world; they present themselves to the unprejudiced eye as naturally as do the groups of mammals, birds, reptiles, fishes and worms in the animal kingdom. The real resemblance of the organisms in such groups is unconsciously accepted by the mind through the association of ideas, and it is not till this involuntary mental act, which in itself requires no effort of the understanding, is accomplished, that any necessity is felt for obtaining a clearer idea of the phenomenon, and the sense of this necessity is the first step to intentional systematic enquiry. The series of botanical works published in Germany and the Netherlands from 1530 to 1623, from Brunfels to Kaspar Bauhin, shows very plainly how this perception of a grouping by affinity in the vegetable kingdom grew more and more distinct; but it also shows how these men merely followed an instinctive feeling in the matter, and made no enquiry into the cause of the relationship which they perceived.

Nevertheless a great step in advance was thus taken; all the foreign matter introduced into the description of plants by medical superstition and practical considerations was seen to be of secondary importance, and was indeed altogether thrown aside by Kaspar Bauhin; the fact of natural affinity, the vivifying principle of all botanical research, came to the front in its place, and awakened the desire to distinguish more exactly whatever was different, and to bring together more carefully all that was like in kind. Thus the idea of natural affinity in plants is not a discovery of any single botanist, but is a product, and to some extent an incidental product, of the practice of describing plants.