Elements of the Philosophy of Plants

This treatise on scientific botany brings together the works of two leading European scientists from the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Swiss botanist Augustin Pyramus de Candolle (1778–1841) and the German botanist and physicist Kurt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel (1766–1833). First published in German in 1820, it was almost immediately translated (anonymously) into English and published in Edinburgh by Blackwood in 1821. This collaborative volume includes three chapters from de Candolle's Théorie élémentaire de la botanique published in Paris in 1819, while the remaining texts and the preface were written by Sprengel; at the time, it provided significant advances on previous botanical theories such as the work of German botanist Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765–1812). A fascinating document on the evolution of botanical science, the book contains a practical section detailing the characteristics of over forty plants, as well as eight illustrations.