Text-book of structural and physiological botany / by Otto W. Thomé ... and Alfred W. Bennett.

  • Thomé, Otto W. (Otto Wilhelm), 1840-1925.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Text-book of structural and physiological botany / by Otto W. Thomé ... and Alfred W. Bennett. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    position in the system to any newly-discovered species. Tiie Linnean system is an artificial one, since it is not founded on a combination of all, nor even of several, characters of a plant, but takes into account only single characters as the primary principle of classification. There were therefore necessarily opponents of the system. The first to propose in its place a natural system was the French botanist A. L. de Jussieu {ob. 1836), who took as his starting-point the presence and the structure of the embryo. He was shortly followed by A. P. De Candolle {ph. 1841) and Endlicher {pb. 1849); the foundation of the primaiy classification being with the former anatomical structure, with the latter the mode of growth. The efforts to construct better systems are not yet brought to a conclusion ; and we cannot yet see their end. In the meantime botanists are vigorously at work in completing the botanical material, whether by the compilation of ' Floras ' which treat of the plants of particular districts, or by travels througli districts hitherto unknown or not yet sufficiently explored. If we now attempt to sketch in a few lines the history of the development of the remaining departments of botanical science ;—it appears, as might be expected, that the study of the anatomy of plants came into existence shortly after the discovery of the art of manufacturing mag- nifying lens.es. The English botanist Grew {pb. 1711) and Malpighi of Bologna {ob. 1694) must be considered as the true founders of this study. After the ground had been successfully broken by their researches, it was almost en- tirely neglected during the eighteenth century, and the in- vestigation has only recently been again resumed, and this branch of botany carried to a truly remarkable perfection by our contemporaries A. '^xd.\m{ob. 1877), Goppert (<7^. 1884), Von Mohl {ob. 1872), Schacht {ob. 1864), Schleiden {ob. 1882), Unger {ob. 1870), and many others. While during the eighteenth century the study of ana- tomy lay dormant, especial interest was excited by problems