Synopsis Methodica Stirpium Britannicarum

Englishman John Ray (1627-1705) is considered by many to be the greatest naturalist of his day, and his works in the fields of botany and zoology are classics of pre-Linnean classification. The Synopsis methodica stirpium brittannicarum, in particular, was the standard botanical authority for many years; it is considered remarkably accurate in its coverage and descriptions of the British flora, and the classification follows a natural sequence, replacing earlier methods with the concept of grouping plants by direct observation of their similarities and differences. Ray's works are so central to the development of modern botanical and zoological classification, as well as to the conceptualization of key scientific issues (he was the first to develop a biological definition of the species concept, for example) that Smithsonian Libraries is working actively to fill the gaps in our holdings of his complete oeuvre.