This classification was supplanted twelve years later by the classification of Ray, who arranged all known vegetables into thirty-three classes, the basis of this classification being the fruit.

A few years later Rivinus, a professor of botany in the University of Leipzig, made still another classification, determining the distinguishing character chiefly from the flower, and Camerarius and Tournefort also made elaborate classifications.

On the Continent Tournefort's classification was the most popular until the time of Linnaeus, his systematic arrangement including about eight thousand species of plants, arranged chiefly according to the form of the corolla.
Most of these early workers gave attention to both vegetable and animal kingdoms.

They were called naturalists, and the field of their investigations was spoken of as "natural history." The specialization of knowledge had not reached that later stage in which botanist, zoologist, and physiologist felt their labors to be sharply divided.

Such a division was becoming more and more necessary as the field of knowledge extended; but it did not become imperative until long after the time of Linnaeus.