An Idea Of A Phytological History Propounded Together With A Continuation Of The Anatomy Of Vegetables Particularly Prosecuted Upon Roots And An Account Of The Vegetation Of Roots Grounded Chiefly Thereupon

Author : Various
Publisher : BoD - Books on Demand
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 342 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (419 download)

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Download or read book MAKERS OF BRITISH BOTANY; written by Various and published by BoD - Books on Demand. This book was released on 2024-02-12 with total page 342 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literature of Botany can be traced back to a quite respectable antiquity, to the period of Aristotle (b.c. 384-322) who seems to have been the first to write of plants from the truly botanical point of view. Unfortunately, his special treatise on plants—θεωρία περὶ φυτῶν—is lost; and although there are many botanical passages scattered throughout his other writings (which have been collected by Wimmer, Phytologiae Aristotelicae Fragmenta, 1836), yet none of them gives any indication of what his ideas of classification may have been. An echo of them is perhaps to be found in the works of his favourite pupil, Theophrastus Eresius (b.c. 371-286), who among all his fellows was the most successful in pursuing the botanical studies that they had begun under the guidance of the master. Theophrastus left behind him two important, though incomplete, treatises on plants, the oldest that have survived: the more familiar Latin titles of which are De Historia Plantarum and [De Causis Plantarum]. The latter is essentially physiological, touching upon agriculture to a certain extent: the former is mainly morphological, structural, descriptive, and it is here that the first attempt at a classification of plants is to be found. In writing the Historia, Theophrastus was endeavouring, as a Greek philosopher rather than as a botanist, to "give account of" plants; and in order to do so he found it necessary to arrange them in some kind of order.