All the nations of antiquity shared this belief alike, and we find that flowers and fruits were constantly used in all religious ceremonials and in the decoration of the temples. Solomon's temple had doors and pillars of fir and cedar and olive wood, while around the walls were carved opening flowers and drooping palms; the curving brim of its molten sea was wrought with lily-work, and the tops of the pillars were circled with golden pomegranates, while cherubim, carved of olive wood and covered with gold, stretched their mighty wings across the holy place until they met above the sacred ark; and during their solemn festivals the priests, clad in the sacred robes the hems of which were wrought in blue and purple and scarlet pomegranates, and hung with golden bells, passed to and fro before the altar, waving boughs of palm and boughs of willow and sheaves of grain, and offered the first-fruits of the harvest in thanksgiving.

On the pillars of temples in Chaldea and Egypt we find carved the lotos, the flower of the resurrection, and in the oldest religious song of the Hindoos we read that sheaves of grain were offered to the God above all gods, the Beautiful-winged, who upheld the spheres. In Persia, the king sat upon a golden throne under a canopy of grape-vines whose leaves were of gold and fruit of priceless gems, while the priests offered grain and fruits to Ormuzd, the Spiritual One, of whom Zoroaster—golden splendor—was the interpreter. In Greece the worship of nature was carried to a still greater extent. At the great religious festivals the altars were twined with roses, and every feast was deemed incomplete till the guests had been crowned with wreaths of flowers. In the spring there were special songs sung in honor of the awakening earth, and in the autumn, at the grape-harvest, a dirge was chanted for the falling leaves and dying flowers.

And we find that the study of plants has interested mankind from the earliest times, and in the oldest histories are recorded the works of those who spent their lives in learning something of the beauty and mystery of the vegetable world.

Kings, philosophers, and priests alike devoted themselves to this study, and every country had its wise men, who sought good to the race and honor to the nation by the discovery of some secret of nature as shown in the laws of plant life.

At first these researches were carried on chiefly as an aid to the study of medicine, which was practised principally by the priests, who mixed with their discoveries many crude theories of vegetable life, and the change of plants into animals. But later on, great attention was given to the subject by men who were interested in knowledge of all kinds, and the priestly caste ceased to be alone the interpreters of the mysteries of the vegetable world.

Aristotle, the greatest naturalist of antiquity, was familiar with the laws of plant-life, and his pupil, Theophrastus, wrote a history of plants in which he described five hundred kinds; and three hundred years later was born Pliny (23 the great Roman naturalist, who devoted seventeen books of his history to botany.

In these books Pliny gives an account of all the trees, shrubs, and plants that were then known, and describes their cultivation and their uses in medicine and the arts. The products of the East, incense, spices, gems, and perfumes, were all noted, and fruit-trees of all kinds, the sugar-cane, the vine and the different kinds of wine made from its purple clusters, flowers, herbs, vegetables, shrubs and trees of every kind, are described with great care, and their medicinal value noticed.

But although the study of botany thus received the attention of the wise of all ages, it was long before any successful attempt was made by which plants could be arranged into different classes, and until this was done botany could never take its proper place among the sciences.

Occasionally a naturalist would suggest some plan of classification, but it would be lacking in so many necessary particulars that it could only fail; to be followed by another that would also fail, and so on, until at last the great Swedish naturalist, Linnæus, succeeded in solving the question which had perplexed the minds of all preceding botanists, and offered a plan which, if not perfect, was at least complete enough to enable naturalists to follow their studies with much greater ease than had ever been possible before.

Linnæus, so called from the Latinized form of the family name, Linné, was born at Rashult, in the Province of Smaland in Sweden, in the year 1707. His father was the pastor of the village, and had a fine taste for flowers, which he cultivated successfully, introducing so many rare exotics in his collection that the little garden soon became famous even far beyond the limits of the parish. All the Linné family were passionately fond of botany, taking their name, even, from the great linden-tree which towered far above the houses of their native village; and Carl, the minister's little son, was no exception to the rule, and the little garden sloping down to the lake, stocked with rare and beautiful plants, and visited by admiring friends who listened respectfully while the pastor talked learnedly about this flower or that, was one of the boy's first recollections.

Later on he had a garden of his own given him, and then, besides the collection from the home plot, all the neighboring country was laid under contribution, and wood and meadow and hill-side had all to give up their treasures to the brown-eyed boy who sought them with such untiring zeal. Very strange things found their way into the little garden, the commonest wild-flowers and poisonous weeds being alike cherished with the roses and lilies, and, had it not been for the father's intervention, even colonies of wild bees and wasps would have been domiciled there; but, as these threatened the safety of the hive-bees, Carl was forced to allow them to depart to their wild haunts again.

The boy studied the secrets of bud and leaf and perfect flower with such eagerness that, before he was eight years old, all the four hundred different plants in his father's collection were perfectly familiar to him, and he could understand the interesting talks about their nature and properties; and the father took care that the knowledge thus gained should be of the most accurate and practical character; Carl had memory-exercises given him in which he was required to describe the composition and of certain plants, and this careful training of eye and ear was no doubt the foundation of that wonderful power of observation for which he was so celebrated later on.

At first this intelligent love for flowers brought only pleasure to his parents, who looked with pride upon a son so likely to keep up the traditions of the Linné family, but, as time passed, they became anxious that he should show an equal interest in other branches of knowledge.

But this Carl refused to do, and the first trouble of his life began with his school-day, when he was forced to learn weary lessons in arithmetic and grammar, instead of roaming through the woods and meadows of Stenbrohult gathering specimens for his herbarium and learning fresh secrets of the great world of nature around him.

But his father and mother were ambitious for Carl; they wished him to become a famous minister and succeed his father in the rectorship, or even perhaps be greater still and gain a name that would resound through Sweden. And so his dislike for his school-studies was frowned down by both parents, and, when the boy was ten years of age, it was decided that he should be sent to the Latin school at Wexio, to begin the usual course of study necessary for the training of a clergyman.

It cost some denial on the part of the pastor to furnish the money for the boy's outfit, but in time all things were ready, and, one pleasant spring morning, just as the Stenbrohult meadows were turning green again, and the buds were swelling with the rich life of the new year, Carl and his father started for Wexio, where great things were expected.