The subject of the uisEAsEs OF PLANTS must he regarded as falling within the prov ince of botany. It has scarcely yet been treated or studied as a distinct branch of sci ence, although it has not been overlooked in its relation to vegetable physiology, with i which its intimate connection is obvious, and it has received no little attention in its bearings on agriculture and other arts by which plants arc made to supply the wants or minister to the comforts of man.
Ecoxouie B. includes all that relates to plants, considered with reference to these arts and to these uses. That part of it which relates to medicinal plants has been often and elaborately treated under the name of MEDICAL. BOTANY. In the botan ical articles of this work will be found notices of the more important plants affording food to man, and therefore cultivated in fields or gardens, in warm or in cold climates, and of those valuable for their timber, their fiber, or the dye-stuffs or medicines which they yield.
haying thus endeavored to sketch an outline of the science of B., we must refer to the articles PLANT, VEGETABLE FITYSTOLOOY, instead of attempting to till up part of that outline by the first principles of the scie»ce. It remmos for us, in the present article, to give a very brief account of the history of B., and outlines of the sys tems of classification most deserving of attention.
We are informed that Solomon " spoke of trees, from the cedar in Lebanon even to the hyssop that springeth out of the wall." There is reason also to believe that &roas ter devoted sonic attention to plants, and that this study early engaged some f the philosophers of Greece. The oldest botanical work which has come down to its is that of Theophrastus (q.v.), a pupil of Aristotle. who flourished in the 4th c. u.c. Ills descriptions of plants are very but his knowledge of their organs and of yeavtable physiology may well deemed wonderful, when consider the low state of this branch of science throughout, many centuries after his time. It was not, indeed. till after the rivival of letters in western Europe. that it was ever again studied as it had i been by him. About four hundred years after Theophrastus, in the first c. of the Christian era, Dioscorides of Anazarbus, in Asia Minor—a herbalist, however, rather than a botanist—described more than 600 plants in a-work which continued in great repute throughout the middle ages, a sure proof how destitute that period must lave been of any botanical science of its own. About the same time, the elder Pliny devoted
a share of his attention to B., and his writings contain some account of than 1000 species, but compiled from various sources without much discrimination, and mingled with many errors. Centuries elapsed without producing another name worthy to be mentioned in a history of botany. It was among the Arabians that the science next began to be cultivated, about the close of the 8th century. The greatest name of this period is Avicenna. Centuries again elapsed, a longer interval than before, during which it made no progress whatever. It was not till the beginning of the 16th c. that B. resumed its place as a science. The first to revive it was Otto Brunsfels, a German, who published in 1530 his Ilistoria Plantarum Argentorati, or history of the plants of Strasburg, in 2 vols., folio, illustrated with cuts. He was speedily followed by Bock or Tra.7us, Fuchs or Fuchsius, and other Germans; by Matthiolus and Ciesalpinus in Italy; Dodcens or Dodonmus in the low countries; De I:0bel or Lobelius, a Dutch physician at the court of England; Gesner in Switzerland; Dalechampa and Moulins, or Mohumus, in France, and by many others, for B. now began to be prosecuted wherever learning flourished, and with great zeal and success. Chairs of B. were founded in universities, botanic gardens (q.v.) were established in many places, and travelers began to explore even remote parts of the world. One of the greatest names of the latter part of the 16th c. is that of L'Ecluse, or Clusius, who traveled through many countries, encountering great perils and hardships in pursuit of his favorite science, and was finally professor of B. at Leyden. The name of Dr. Turner, " the Father of English B.." belongs more to the 17th c. than to the 16th. The number of species known and described had increased, in the beginning of the 17th c., to more than 5000, but the study of them was much impeded by confusion of synonyms and by want of classification, whilst classification was rendered extremely difficult by imperfect knowledge of the structure and organs of plants. The foundations of a natural system of classification may be said to have been laid, in the latter half of the 17th c., by Dr. Robert Morison, a native of _Aberdeen and professor of B. at Oxford, followed towards the close of the century by .he celebrated Ray, one of the greatest naturalists that England has produced.