Displaying ‘kindreds and affinities’

Morison divided his Umbellae into nine classes or subsidiary genera (I-IX on the Plate), for example, ‘Semine fungoso’ [spongy seeds], ‘Semine Striato’, [striated seeds] and ‘Semine testiculato s[ive]. rotundo’ [solid and ovate or round seeds]. Within Class I, seeds are either smooth (‘laevi’) or furrowed (‘sulcato’), with furrowed seeds being further divided between those with rough (‘aspero’) or flat (‘plano’) surfaces. Within Class II, the divisions are based on the form of the leaves. The groups excluded from Morison’s concept of Umbellae, ‘Umbellae improprie Dictae’, are arranged into seven classes (1-7 on the Plate).

This Table, together with the another seven, are remarkable for attempting to display graphically the cognationis et affinitatis (‘kindreds and affinities’) of the species investigated in the Plantarum umbelliferarum. Attempts to recreate such Tables in the letterpress of Parts 2 and 3 of the Historia, failed to achieve the same degree of clarity.

Morison was eager, ‘with all possible speed to finish and put out the whole Work’. His goal was ‘advancing and facilitating that part of Natural History, which hath hitherto been so tedious and discouraging to Students of that Science, for the honor of this our famous Island, and for the Increase of Learning, chiefly in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge’ (Morison, 1675: 327). Despite being the King’s botanist, Morison could expect few financial resources from the monarch; he had to look elsewhere.

Reference

Morison, R 1675. A Proposal to Noblemen, Gentlemen and others, who are willing to subscribe towards Dr. Morison’s New Universal Herbal, ordering Plants according to a new and true Method, never published heretofore. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society 114: 327-328.