Landmarks of Botanical History (Volume 1); A Study of Certain Epochs in the Development of the Science of Botany - Softcover

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1909. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IX VALERIUS CORDUS, 1515-154 Hitherto Valerius Cordus remains almost unknown except by name. Not one of the four of his own countrymen who wrote botanical history within the nineteenth century ever looked into Cordus' writings--all of them published after his early death-- far enough tp see whether he had been least or greatest among German botanists of the sixteenth century. Sprengel says that "Valerius Cordus, son of Euricius, if he had lived longer, might have given to his works a certain maturity which is conspicuously wanting to them";1 after which anything but laudatory opinion he proceeds to give the young man full credit for having travelled widely in many parts of Germany, and for having discovered and published a goodly number of new plants. Of a very different tenor is the language of Ernst Meyer: "A splendid and all too transitory phenomenon was Euricius Cordus' son Valerius."2 While in my view this opinion of Valerius Cordus' merits is not extravagant, still Meyer, as it seems to me, fails to show reason for such high praise. He does much better than Sprengel; yet I am obliged to infer that he borrowed the opinions of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authorities on Cordus, rather than as having made the young man's writings a subject of careful examination. The estimate of the best botanists of two generations after Cordus was an exalted one, as to his merits; and that outside of Germany. Sachs in his volume of history seems to have found it easy to adopt Sprengel's tone of indifference to this youth of rare genius. "For the present," he says, "we pass by Valerius Cordus, Conrad Gesner, Matthioli, and several others of no importance,"3 etc., etc.; and this is the only reference to him which I have been able to find save mention of the fact...