344 MR. G. BENTHAM ON COMPOSITR. 
general my chief labour has been the testing and verifying or 
reconciling the observations of others, although this has always 
been preceded by the examination of specimens and drawing up 
my own generic character, afterwards modifying it when neces- 
sary in points elicited by others which I had at first overlooked. 
The principal changes I have proposed in the general methods 
of Lessing and De Candolle were determined upon and worked 
out long before I was aware that they were in a great measure a 
return to that of Cassini. The confusion which his multiplication 
of names had produced, and the unusual terminology of his descrip- 
tions, had excited in my mind a prejudice against him, until, after 
completing my work of detail, I came to study his generalizations, 
which showed how much better his views of affinities coincided 
with mine than those of his successors ; and I have since had the 
satisfaction to learn that the principal of these changes I have 
made have also met with the approval of such careful observers 
as Asa Gray and Ed. Boissier. It is scarcely necessary to add that 
in this, as in other parts of our ‘Genera Plantarum,’ any important 
changes which either Dr. Hooker or myself have proposed in the 
orders we have respectively undertaken, have always been after 
consultation and in concert with the other. 
. II. Comparative VALUE OF GENERIC CHARACTERS. 
Before entering into a general outline of the main divisions 
we have adopted, some explanation is required of the principles 
upon which we have conformed to or departed from the systems 
. of our predecessors ; we must form to ourselves some idea of the 
comparative value of the various characters put forward by different 
synantherologists ; and for this purpose it will be necessary sever- 
ally to consider them in some detail. We may take them in the 
following order :—1. Sexual differences ; 2. Di- and trimorphism ; 
3. differences in the Pistil, 4. in the Fruit, 5. in the Androecium, 
6. in the Corolla, 7. in the Calyx, 8. in the ultimate Inflorescence 
and bracts (2. e. in the capitulum and its receptacle, involucre, and 
palez), 9. in Foliage, 10. in Habit, stature, and general inflores- 
cence, and, 11. in Geographical distribution. 
l. Sexual Differences. 
Characters derived from this source were, as already observed, 
considered of the highest importance by Linneus, who founded 
on them his primary divisions of the order. Subsequent syste- 
matists have gradually placed them lower in the scale, but yet 
