Alberti Magni De Vegetabilibus Libri VII

times, however, having invented and most accurately applied thermometers, have demonstrated it to be false, such that we are now taught that while the sun's rays are of the greatest importance, the other stars are of hardly any moment to the growth of plants.

Yet the memory of Albertus will remain in science, who, as he was the first to recognize that individual parts of a plant are formed according to a common law, strove to signify the same parts of different plants, although differing in form, with the same name. Thus, he seems to be the first to have well perceived that system of terminology which we hold today as the foundation of natural science: that parts which differ not in form but in nature should be distinguished by different names. In this way, things were begun by Albertus which were brought to completion by Jungius Joachim Jung, 17th-century botanist, Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus, 18th-century naturalist, and Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet and naturalist.

Regarding individual items, which are dispersed in many places, please consult both the following chapter and the index of subjects. These are the more important points:

Plant growth tends either upward or downward; shapes depend especially on the powers of the seeds IV § 122–129.

A plant is as if purged by the creation of leaves, so that each upper leaf becomes thinner and more slender than the lower ones II § 43, VI § 348.

The leaf terminates in the bark VI § 56 seq., 233; it is compared with the fruit IV § 103–104, and approaches it in various ways II § 92 seq., 109, IV § 94 seq.

Thorns and prickles are best distinguished IV § 111–117.

The flower is formed from leaves IV § 110, VI § 159; its parts succeed one another in alternating order VI § 213–215, 291; a triple figure of it exists II § 133–140; here and there stamens—