XVI International Botanical Congess

In the mid-seventeenth century, the study of plants was not a single scholarly activity. Under the umbrella of 'natural history', botany included a broad array of ill-defined activities, and 'natural historian referred to a variety of individuals (such as physicians, apothecaries, philologists, antiquarians, geographers, collectors, and gardeners),ho by no means viewed themselves as a single community of scholars. By the end of the century, Natural History was the disciplined enterprise of an identifiable community of natural philosophers, committed to precise first-hand observations, agreed upon a scholarly tradition which they represented, and preoccupied with the importance of taxonomy--the natural philosophy of delineating the natural order and relations of things. First in England, then on the Continent, a community of botanists became established and achieved consensus on the nature of their enterprise: they defined relevant activities, validated experience, standardized procedures, and established competence in its practitioners. It was especially with repsect to the study of plants that natural history achieved its fullest expression as a discipline. This disciplinary transformation of botany in the seventeenth century is the object of my paper.