FOOTNOTES:
[1] It will be shown in a later chapter that Linnaeus’ sexual system was intended to be artificial.
[2] Kurt Sprengel in his ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. 1817, and Ernst Meyer in his ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ iv. 1857 have described the connection between the first beginnings of modern botany and the general state of learning in the 15th and 16th centuries; a particularly interesting notice of Valerius Cordus from the pen of Thilo Irmisch will be found in the ‘Prüfungsprogramm’ of the Schwarzburg gymnasium of Sondershausen for 1862. Here, as throughout, the present work will be confined to the investigation and description of the development of strictly botanical ideas.
[3] Otto Brunfels, born at Mainz before the year 1500, was at first a student of theology and a monk; becoming a convert to Protestantism he was actively engaged at Strassburg first as a teacher and afterwards as a physician; he died in 1534.
[4] Beside the herbals mentioned in the text, which may be regarded as scientific works on botany, a considerable number of books on the signature of plants were written in the 16th and 17th centuries in the interests of medicine or medical superstition. It was believed that certain external marks and resemblances between parts of plants and the organs of the human body indicated the plants and the parts of them which possessed healing virtues. Pritzel mentions by name twenty-four works of the kind, which appeared between 1550 and 1697. The herbals also noticed the signatures, and even Ray has an enquiry into the subject.
[5] The fragments of Aristotelian botany which have come down to us are to be found translated from Wimmer’s edition in Ernst Meyer’s ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ i. p. 94.
[6] Ernst Meyer (Geschichte der Botanik) gives a full account of Theophrastus, who was born at Lesbos A.C. 371 and died A.C. 286. An edition of his work ‘De historia et de causis plantarum’ was published by Theodor Gaza in 1483. See also Pritzel’s ‘Thesaurus literarum botanicarum.’
[7] See L. C. Treviranus in his work, ‘Die Anwendung des Holzschnitts zur bildlichen Darstellung der Pflanzen,’ Leipzig, 1855, and Choulant ‘Graphische Incunabeln,’ Leipzig, 1858.
[8] Konrad Gesner, born in Zürich in 1516, became after many vicissitudes of fortune Professor of Natural History in his native town, and died there of the plague in 1565. See Ernst Meyer, ‘Geschichte der Botanik,’ iv.