John Ray

John Ray was an English naturalist whose three-volume Historia Plantarum (1686 to 1704) attempted to classify and catalog every known plant, chiefly of Europe, superseding the older tradition of descriptive herbals. Ray classified plants by overall structure rather than any single characteristic, and he is credited with establishing the distinction between monocotyledons and dicotyledons still used today. His systematic approach influenced later naturalists including Linnaeus and Cuvier. Born in Black Notley, Essex, on November 29, 1627, Ray died in the same village on January 17, 1705.