Letters on the elements of botany. Addressed to a lady / Translated into English, with notes, and twenty-four additional letters, fully explaining the system of Linnaeus. By Thomas Martyn.

  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Date:
1785
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letters on the elements of botany. Addressed to a lady / Translated into English, with notes, and twenty-four additional letters, fully explaining the system of Linnaeus. By Thomas Martyn. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Is but the knowledge of a herbarift. I have always thought it poffible to be a very great Botanift without knowing fo much as one plant by name ; and without wifhing to make your daughter a very great Botanift, I think neverthelefs that it will always be ufeful to her to learn how to fee* whatever fhe looks at* well. Do not however be terri- fied at the undertaking. You will foon know that it is not a great one. There is nothing either complicated or difficult in what 1 have to propofe to you. Nothing is required but to have patience to begin with the beginning. After that you may go oil no farther than you choofe. We are now getting towards the latter feafon, and thofe plants which are the moft fimple in their ftrudure are already paft. Befides, I exped you will take fome time to makeyour observations a little regularly. How- ever in the mean while, ’till Spring puts you in a fituation to begin and follow the order of nature, I am going to give you a few words of the vocabulary to get by heart, A perfed plant is compofed of a root* of a item with its branches, of leaves, flow- er, and fruit, (for in Botany, by fruit, in herbs as well as in trees, we underftand the whole fabrick of the feed). You know the whole of this already, at leaft enough to underftand the term ; but there is a princi- pal part which requires an examination more G A At