Enquiry into Plants

of the plants contained therein, and of what Theophrastus discerned regarding the parts of plants and their internal structure. Among us, also, in a miscellaneous work containing various treatises on Natural History, the celebrated William Falconer, M.D., published the plants of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and other Greek writers, adding the synonyms of Bauhin and Linnaeus, at Cambridge, A.D. 1793. Because of the truly varied learning of this distinguished writer, and especially his supreme skill in the Greek language, it will be worth the effort for any inquirer of Nature to study carefully his "Table of Plants most frequently found in the ancient Greek writers"; however, it is not the purpose of this undertaking to harmonize the discrepant names of the plants of Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and others, but only to bring the plants of Theophrastus into clearer light by gathering his descriptions into one place.

However, Theophrastus is not to be contemplated as a systematic author, as Linnaeus rightly warns, even though among natural philosophers he should scarcely be ranked after his teacher, Aristotle. For having instituted a comparison (l. i. c. 1. On Plants) between animals and vegetables, he diligently defines the parts, the properties, the modes of life, and the origins of both. He pursues with incredible fidelity and care the medicinal powers and the various methods of cultivation, so that we seem to read of matters of daily use rather than things hidden in remote antiquity. Of which matter