Annals of the History and Philosophy of Biology

Plant systematics in Jena during the early 19 th century
he rejects 35 the interpretation of J. W. von Goethe’s Schriften zu Naturwissenschaft by D.
Kuhn who wrote that “Batsch richtete ihn [the botanical garden] nach dem natürlichen System
Jussieus ein, damals eine bemerkenswerte Neuerung.” 36 However I. Poliansky assumes that the
botanical garden was arranged following A. J. G. K. Batsch’s natural system of 1786:
“Während die meisten Botaniker Deutschlands Linné folgten, wurde der Garten nach dem von
seinem ersten Direktor A. J. G. K. Batsch (1761-1802) entworfenen “natürlichen” System angelegt”
[with note of the author: A. J. G. K. Batsch, Dispositio generum plantarum…. Jenae, 1786] 37
The only piece of evidence of the first arrangement of the botanical garden is a range of
plates published in 1795 in A.J.G. K. Batsch’s Conspectus horti botanici. The problem is that
these plates do not show a system but only an arrangement of the families taken from A.
J. G. K. Batsch and A. L.de Jussieu and a tentative grouping according to some classes
previously described by A. J.G. K. Batsch. We would expect that he used his classification
from 1786 as a basis for the arrangement of the families in the garden. Indeed we
find in his Conspectus horti botanici 38 that according to his natural system from 1786 he
started with Senticosae in bed 1, corresponding more or less to the actual Rosoideae 39 and
followed by Malvaceae in bed 2. Nevertheless we notice many deviations from his system,
for example, the Siliquosae (Brassicaceae) which follow the Malvaceae in his system (1786)
are not presented in bed 3 but in bed 15, closer to bed 13 which contained the Apiaceae
(Umbellae). These two families are also much closer to each other in A.-L. de Jussieu’s
natural system (class 5, n°60 and n°63 respectively). We may conclude that A. J. G. K.
Batsch was aware of A.-L. de Jussieu’s ideas of a natural system and tried to take it into
account when he was planning the botanical garden. This view is supported by the register
of his Dispositio generum plantarum (1794) which, like A.-L. de Jussieu starts with the
cryptogams. A. J. G. K. Batsch had placed cryptogams at the end of his system before.
On the basis of this description we assumed that the arrangement of the botanical garden
followed A. J.G. K. Batsch’s natural groupings combined with a reception of A.-L.
de Jussieu’s natural families and orders. Futhermore we know that A. J. G. K. Batsch’s
arrangement of the botanical garden was maintained until 1823 40. Consequently we cannot
accept the previous interpretation of I. Poliansky (see above), especially not in consideration
of Fr. S. Voigt’s rejection of A. J. G. K. Batsch’s natural system. Indeed Fr. S.
Voigt worked all his life on the improvement of a natural method, and spread the ideas
of French naturalists in Germany. Therefore, it is hard to understand why he would use
35 See Poliansky, I. Natursystem, Systemästhetik und das Überleben der Physikotheologie. 2004b: p. 129.
36 Kuhn, D. Goethe die Schriften zur Narturwissenschaft. Zweite Abteilung: Ergänzungen und Erläuterungen Band
9A. Weimar, H. Böhlaus Nachfolger, 1977: pp. 329-328.
37 Poliansky, I. Der außerordentliche Garten […], 2001: p. 204.
38 Batsch, A. J. G. K. 1795. Op. cit. note 31.
39 The woody groups were planted in special areas of the garden: “Insuper invenies in areis magnis A. B. C.
(etiam extra areas in variis horti locis) arbores et frutices plures; locatur in A. Amygdalus, Prunus, Rubus
[…].” Batsch, A. J. G. K. 1795. Ebenda.
40 See Bradish, J. A. von. 1937. Op. cit. note 23.
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