‎LINNE (C.)‎
‎Système sexuel des végétaux suivant les classes, les ordres, les genres et les espèces, avec les caractères et les différences. Première édition française, calquée sur celles de Murray et de Persoon, augmentée et enrichie de notions élémentaires ; de notes diverses ; d'une concordance avec la méthode de Tournefort et les familles naturelles de Jussieu, etc par N. Jolyclerc ---- PREMIERE EDITION FRANCAISE‎

‎P., Ronvaux, 1798, un volume in 8 relié en pleine basane, dos orné de fers dorés (reliure de l'époque), (1 coin légèrement émoussé, petite piqure de vers à la partie inférieure d'un mors), (3), 789pp.‎

Reference : 3327

‎----- PREMIERE EDITION FRANCAISE ---- BON EXEMPLAIRE ---- "During his lifetime, Linnaeus exerted an influence in his fields -botany and natural history- that has had few parallels in the history of science. Driven by indomitable ambition and aided by an incredible capacity for work, he accomplished the tremendous task that he had set for himself in his youth : the establishment of new system for the three kingdoms of nature to facilitate the description of all known animals, plants and minerals... There was at that time an urgent need for a simple and easy-to-grasp system for the plant kingdom... Since the time of Cesalpino many botanists had tried to create a useful system ; and toward the eighteenth century some of these systems had begun to win considerable support, especially those of John Ray and Tournefort, based upon the appearance of the corolla. But none was sufficiently practical, and the various systems were reciprocally competitive, thus increasing the confusion. Only Linnaeus'system, based on sexuality, had the requisite of being generally adoptable... Around 1720 the sexuality of plants was still being disputed by many botanists. Linnaeus had already learned about it from his teacher Rothman... As a student he had pursued the subject through his own investigations and soon was convinced of its truth. In Praeludia sponsaliorum plantarum (1730), he announced that the stamens and pistils were the sexual organs of plants. At the same time he began to investigate whether the stamens and pistils could be used to construct a new botanical system. After a short period of doubt he was sure that they could and in Systema naturae he presented the sexual system in its definitive form... To be sure, the system was attacked ( in Germany by Siegesbeck and Heister, in Switzerland by Haller and in France where Thournefort's system had long been generally accepted). But acceptance of the sexual system could not be halted ; it gained footing almost everywhere, especially in England, beginning in the 1760's". (DSB VIII)**3327/A2-3328/CART.7‎