372  'Dr.Suiru's Description of Duchesnea fragiformis. 
Linnæus, who was furnished by its author with specimens of 
every thing he described. The subject is followed up by the 
same writer im an essay communicated to Lamarck, and pub- 
lished in his Dictionnaire de Botanique, vol. ii. 528, in which per- 
haps he may be thought to multiply distinctions without necessity, 
like all who study any subject with a microscopic eye. But if 
the philosophical principles:of strict specific differences have not 
particularly engaged his attention, that defect is supplied by 
Ehrhart in his Beiträge, fasc. 7. 20, who in the direction of the 
pubescence of these plants has found means to discriminate the 
species in a masterly manner. Willdenow in his Species Plan- 
tarum has profited by these remarks, though he still retains an 
error of Linnzus in making a distinct species of the Fragaria- mo- 
nophylla, Curt. Mag. t. 63, clearly shown by Duchesne to be a 
variety raised by himself from seed of the Wood Strawberry, 
F. vesca, and found to return gradually to its original in a few 
generations, when propagated by the same mode. 
The plant I am about to describe seems peculiarly fit for the 
purpose in view, on account of its resemblance and affinity to 
Fragaria, though surely no genus can be more distinct. It affords 
a new example of what I have often had occasion to remark, 
that the genera of the Linnean Icosandria Polygynia, which is 
itself a natural order, are not less distinct in nature than in tech- 
nical characters, | 
DUCHESNEA. 
Crass. ET Orv. Icosandria Polygynia. 
Nat. Orv. Senticose Linn. Rosacee Juss. 
Essent. Cuar. Calyx decemfidus. Petala quinque. Bacca 
supera, composita acinis monospermis. 
Nar. 
