5(52 WILD FLOWERS OF 



slip, the primrose, or some other simple object that 

 has received a supernatural value from the muse," * 

 must be contented with the simpler references and 

 more practically useful appliances of the Linnaean; 

 at least until he is familiar with the common vege- 

 table forms, or has the happiness to have abundant 

 time for closet botanical study and patient microsco- 

 pical investigation at his disposal. It has indeed 

 become usual with the advocates of Natural Systems 

 to assert strangely and inconsistently enough that 

 Linnsean botany leads only to a knowledge of names, 

 forgetting the heavy catalogue of names they them- 

 selves inflict upon the overloaded memory of the 

 student. The charge is most absurd, since the name 

 of a plant is a key that conducts to the various works 

 where a full description may be found of every thing 

 known concerning it. This is the primary thing 

 wanted, and as Dr. DRTJHMOKD has well remarked 

 " to ascertain a plant when seen, and learn its scien- 

 tific appellation, is the very first and the most 

 important step to all botanical knowledge, and, in 

 leading to this, the system of Lonojus leaves every 

 other at an immeasurable distance." * 



These reflections will prepare us for another bota- 

 nical campaign in the Spring, when we can once again 

 look out upon vegetable structures with renewed 

 activity ; the season now calls us to the timbered hall 

 of some old hospitable farm-house, where the spirits 

 of the grove shelter like ourselves in view of the 

 hearth's genial blaze ; for powdery snow noiselessly 



* Sketch Book. 



* Obsenwtions mi Natural Systems of Botany. By JAMES L. DRUM. 



M.ONM), M.B., p. 49. 



