In the foregoing description of this plant will be found some 
expressions with respect to the venation, if it may be so called, ot 
the leaves, which require explanation. It has always appeared to us 
a great defect in Botanical terminology, that no precise method 
should have been contrived for explaining the peculiar arrangement 
of the veins of leaves. The observations of Professor Link upon 
this subject ( elem . 183) are not sufficiently circumstantial to form an 
exception to this remark. Botanists are accustomed to speak of 
leaves with reference to their figure, their surface, their margin, 
or their position, in the most accurate terms; but of the arrangement 
of the veins, and of the relation which they bear to each other in 
different parts of the leaf, the mode of expression is usually too 
indefinite to convey any clear ideas. And yet we believe the subject 
will be found of the first degree of importance in considering the 
natural affinities of vegetables. All practical Botanists, and the 
greater part of common observers, recognise a plant by its foliage as 
readily as by its inflorescence. It is by the leaves and branches of 
its trees, and not by their flowers, that the vegetation of a country 
acquires those peculiarities of appearance for which the different 
latitudes of the world are remarkable. In our own country, it is not 
the puny flower of the Oak, and of other Amentaceae, which gives a 
character to our forests, but the clothing of verdant foliage with 
which the All-wise Creator has provided them; neither in the Tropics, 
does the inflorescence of the Bananas and the numerous tribes of 
T rees ^ ve extraordinary appearance to the landscape 
which is produced by the wondrous foliage of those extraordinary 
tre ® s ^ which have been well described as the princes of the vegetable 
As there is something which may be considered heterodox in 
ascribing so unusual a degree of importance to the characters of an 
"gan which is but little attended to in systematic arrangement, and 
which has been absolutely in theory, though not in practice, excluded, 
bom generic distinctions by Linnaeus, we may be permitted to cite in 
our aid a passage from a modern work, which, without detracting 
from the merits of other publications, maybe pronounced the most 
perfect introduction to Botany which has yet been produced. 
Oames fere Botanici,” says Professor Link, “ genera artificialia 
constituunt, nam notas ex inflorescentia^/’o/m, caule, radice desumtas 
excludunt. Admittendas esse nullum dubium, quamvis caut&, ne 
mutabiles constantibus misceas.” Elem. 435. 
How, indeed, can it be doubted that organs from which vegetation 
may almost be said to derive its very existence, of which the flowers, 
and all that depend upon them, are mere metamorphoses, and which 
thus perform the most essential vital functions of vegetable life, are 
of the utmost importance in considering the mutual relations of the 
creations by which they are borne ? 
.. .Having, then, so high an idea of the relation which the pecu- 
lanties of leaves bear to the general arrangements of nature, we may 
