of his 'Historia plantarum universalis Oxoniensis,' the third portion of which was published after his death by Bobart in 1699, a collection of most of the plants then known and a large number of new ones with descriptions; the systematic arrangement in this work is to be seen in Linnaeus' 'Classes Plantarum.' If Morison in his criticism of Bauhin displayed considerable acuteness within narrow circles of affinity, his universal system on the contrary shows extremely small feeling for affinities on the large scale; the most different forms are brought together even in the smaller divisions; the last class of his Bacciferae, for example, contains genera like Solanum, Paris, Podophyllum, Sambucus, Convallaria, Cyclamen, a result which is the more surprising as Morison does not, like Cesalpino, confine himself to single fixed marks, but has regard also to the habit. On the whole his arrangement as an expression of natural affinities must be ranked after those of de l'Obel and Bauhin.
Morison's merit lay in truth less in the quality of what he did, than in the fact that he was the first to renew the cultivation of systematic botany on a comprehensive scale. The number of his adherents was always small; in Germany Paul Ammann, Professor in Leipsic, adopted Morison's views in his 'Character Plantarum Naturalis' (1685), and Paul Hermann, Professor in Leyden from 1679 to 1695, after collecting plants in Ceylon for eight years, proposed a system founded on that of Morison, but which can scarcely be called an improvement upon it.
In contrast to Morison, John Ray[1] (1628 to 1705) not only
- ↑ John Ray, born at Black Notley in Essex, was also a zoologist of eminence. He studied theology and travelled in England and on the continent, and afterwards devoted himself entirely to science, being supported by a pension from Willoughby. See Carus, 'Geschichte der Zoologie,' p. 428.
engraving on copper-plate had taken its place. A thick volume of figures of plants in the largest folio size engraved on copper, the 'Hortus Eistädtensis," appeared in the beginning of the 17th century.
