314 NOTICES OP BOOKS. 



vation of the more accessible characters of plants, — showing the rela- 

 tions of these as they occur in different divisions of the vegetable king- 

 dom, — we place the student in a position which enables him to proceed 

 at once with an inquiry into the peculiarities of the plants he meets 

 with, and in this way to acquire a fund of practical knowledge, which 

 is not only absolutely requisite before entering upon abstract inquiries, 

 but is especially calculated to secure his permanent interest in the 

 study." This is sound philosophy ; it is a return to the Linnsean 

 principles in teaching botany, too long abandoned in this country ; it 

 is written in the spirit of the ? Philosophia Botanica/ ' Fundamenta 

 Botanica/ and other classical works of the same great author, which 

 are condemned to neglect by professors, and are never spoken of to 

 students, because Linnseus's artificial classification of his own natural 



genera has been superseded by Jussieu's natural classification of the 

 genera too.* 



It now remains to say a few words on the manner in which 

 Professor Henfrey has executed his plan. After a few introductory 

 pages, the author commences with, — I. Morphology, or the compara- 

 tive anatomy of plants ; and then proceeds to, II. Systematic Botany ; 

 III. Physiology ; and IV. Geographical and Geological Botany. This 

 course enables him to begin at once with botany in its most objective 

 form. After a few remarks on general morphology, in which the 

 nature of the subject is explained, the student is shown some flowering 

 plants, and taught their organs, from the root to the seed, with the 

 order and method of evolution of each. Surely this is the right way 



t \^ he \T\ merits ° f Linn£eus as a natural systematist have never been appreciated. 

 In the well-deserved admiration of the labours of the Jussieus, it is invariably for- 

 gotten that the efforts of genius displayed by Linnzeus in constructing natural 

 genera was as great as that of the Jussieus in classifying these into genera of a 

 higher value, now called Natural Orders ; and considering the chaotic state that both 

 the genera and species were in upon which Linnaus worked, and the vast number of 

 new forms he first naturally grouped under genera, the amount of labour, skill, and 

 knowledge eipended in the effort are what can now never be fully realized. The 

 Imtoryof our system presents but four very salient points:— 1. Ray's division of 

 gants into Phamogams and Cryptogams, and the former into Monocotyledons and 



forming natural 

 xnese accessible to scientific minds by a binomial nomenclatu 

 some degree natural) classes and orders ; 3. Jussieu's combk 

 under truly natural orders and artificial subclasses, which he 

 but for the means of acquiring and grouping the facts that Lin 



5'JS r^f"!? ( V mu08 P er ^, b y Brown: this is the first 

 HMsification of the Jussieuan Orders of Dicotyledons, which i 

 m systematic botany. ' ' ™ mca * 



artificial 



desideratum 



