Andrea Cesalpino

It's the birthday of Andrea Cesalpino; the Italian physician, philosopher, and botanist, born on this day in 1519.
 
Cesalpino helped establish botany as a science and he did great initial work classifying plants
 
Unlike many of his peers who were classifying plans based on their medical properties or even alphabetically, Cesalpino classified plants according to their fruit and seeds.
 
He also enjoyed the plant exploration. He loved to go out into the field collecting specimens for his herbariums. One had over 700 specimens that he dedicated to the bishop. It survives still today at the University of Florence in Italy.
 
In 1583, Cesalpino wrote a book about plants and it is considered to be the very first textbook of botany.
 
Unfortunately, Cesalpino included no illustrations in his book. He wrote that he didn't think they were necessary. One of the consequences of that decision is that today, Cesalpino is less well-known than many of his contemporaries.