ABSTRACT

Carl Linnaeus was familiar with the work of his predecessors and made abundant use of it. In his theoretical botany and in his system of classification he incorporated a good deal of what Cesalpinus, Jung, Morison, Ray, Rivinus, and Tournefort had already taught. Essentially a systematist, Linnaeus subordinated all other aspects and problems of botany to the problem of classification. Joseph Gartner descriptions, aided by numerous careful illustrations, constitute a valuable contribution to the study of botany. And Gartner succeeded in elucidating a number of morphological problems relating to the structure of the reproductive organs of plants, which had been but little understood till then. Gartner, of Wurttemberg, Germany, published, in 1788, the first part of his work De fructibus et seminibus plantarum. It deals systematically with the various kinds of fruits and seeds, but makes no attempt to use these as the basis of a classification of plants.