Institutes of botany; : containing accurate, compleat and easy descriptions of all the known genera of plants: translated from the Latin of the celebrated Charles von Linné, Professor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Upsal; First physician to the King of Sweden, Knight of the Polar Star, and member of the most learned societies in Europe. To which are prefixed, I. A view of the ancient and present state of botany. II. A Synopsis, exhibiting the essential or striking characters which serve to discriminate genera of the same class and order; as likewise the secondary characters of each genus, or those derived from the port, habit or general appearance of the plants which compose it. / By Colin Milne, Reader on Botany in London, author of the Botanical Dictionary.

  • Milne, Colin, 1743 or 1744-1815.
Date:
M,DCC,LXXI. [i.e. 1771]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Institutes of botany; : containing accurate, compleat and easy descriptions of all the known genera of plants: translated from the Latin of the celebrated Charles von Linné, Professor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Upsal; First physician to the King of Sweden, Knight of the Polar Star, and member of the most learned societies in Europe. To which are prefixed, I. A view of the ancient and present state of botany. II. A Synopsis, exhibiting the essential or striking characters which serve to discriminate genera of the same class and order; as likewise the secondary characters of each genus, or those derived from the port, habit or general appearance of the plants which compose it. / By Colin Milne, Reader on Botany in London, author of the Botanical Dictionary. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    This fixed character being eftablifiied, the fenfitive plant and fome other well-known inflances Hill recur. -All that can be faid with refpe£t to fuch inflances is, 'that they are .exceptions to the generaHaw*nf their being ; for nature makes all her changes by minute gradations, and leaves no great gap in the iiniverfarchain.' In fine, a diflindtive charadler being cflablifhed, there can be little difficulty or confufion. Vegetables then are placed in a middle flate, between the fentient animal and- the unorganized mineral; inferior to the former, fuperior to- the latter. ‘ Animals and vegetables agree in many particulars. , They grow, and are nourifhed. They are furnifhed each with an organized flrudlure, that is, confifl of parts which co-operate in producing the changes that are effedted in their frame. The nourifhment, which they receive in a very different manner; the vegetable from the foil in which it is placed; the animaf fearching about in quefl of it; is filtrated through the veffels, and by a procefs which we cannot explain, affimilated to the fubflance of the plant or animal, fo as to repair -its wafte; and increafe its growth. Thus an analogy manifeflly obtains betwixt Vegetation and the animal ceconomy. The root at- • tradling moiflure from the foil, and abforbing it, may aptly enough be compared to the flomach and ladleals of animals; the courfe of the fap to the circulation of the blood ; the abforption of the redundant moiflure by the fun, to animal perfpiration. Accord¬ ingly fuch terms have'been invented, and we fpeak of the cir¬ culation of the fap, the perfpiration and relpiration of plants. ' Strong, however, as this analogy is, we cannot explain any of the fadls in the one fubjedl by thole of the other. Their laws and modus operandi are 'quite diflindl. No fadt in vegetation can explain animal heat. In fine, mechanics, vegetation, animal ccconomy, and intelligence, are fubjcdts that are quite dillincl:, totally independent, and can never explain each other. SECTION