1835.] De Candolles Introduction, ^c. Q6 



the elementary and compound organs which enter into the structure 

 of vegetables, and by means of which they discharge their different 

 functions ; Phi/,siolo<i;t/, or the enumeration of the phenomena re- 

 lative to their nutrition and re-production ; Methodolot^yj or the 

 act of classifying vegetables in families, orders, and genera, accord- 

 ing to their affinities, and of describing these families, orders, genera 

 and species, in such a way as to render them readily recognizable ; 

 Botanical ^eos;raphy, or the actual distribution of vegetables in 

 families, genera and species over the different parts of the globe ; 

 Oryctology, or the situation and disposition in families, genera 

 and species of the fossil vegetables discovered in our time ; Medical 

 Botany, or view of the relations which exist between vegetables and 

 their different organizations ; Lastly, the history of the science, or 

 its successive developement from its origin down to this time. 



Each of these primary divisions contains subdivisions of more or 

 less importance. Thus, under organography, the theory of union, 

 abortion and the metamorphoses of the organs is developed. Under 

 physiology the different products extracted from vegetables ; the dif- 

 ferent phenomena presented by a plant from its flowering to the 

 dissemination of its seed, the principles upon which the art of engraft- 

 ing ; the various duration of vegetables, and the deleterious influence 

 which mineral, animal, and vegetable poisons exercise upon them 

 are pointed out. Under methodology, after fully explaining nomen- 

 clature, botanical collections, and gardens, the different families into 

 which the vegetable kingdom (pointing out in each the authors and 

 the works to be consulted) are enumerated. 



This work may therefore be considered the most complete treatise 

 which has appeared on the subject, and it is written with great pre- 

 cision and clearness. It exhibits a great extent of botanical know- 

 ledge, and is accommodated to the present state of the science, as 

 the author states the opinions brought forward in the most recent 

 European works of botany, and candidly adopts those which appear 

 to him of most weight. 



In another point of view, this work will be found of great utility. 

 If an observing botanist in the course of his studies meets with a 

 subject which appears to him worthy of examination, and for the 

 elucidation of which he requires to consult books, he will find proper 

 directions for this purpose in the work of De Caridolle. If, for ex- 

 ample, he is forming a monography of a family, he finds the names 

 of the authors who have been previously engaged in the same task, 

 and the progress which they have made. But not only are former 

 discoveries well explained, but new views are developed. Thus, for 

 example, in his elementary theory, his father recommended, in order 

 to ascertain if a classification was really natural, the comparison of 

 the results of a classification deduced from the organs of re-produc- 

 tion, with that deduced from the organs of vegetation, as he con- 

 sidered that when these agreed, it might be inferred that the method 

 was in reality natural. J3ut INI. Alphonse De Candolle remarks, 

 that the elementary organs (cells and vessels) being the' common 

 basis of the organs of nutrition and re-production, cannot be exclu- 

 sively considered as belonging to either series, and proposes to con- 

 VOL. II. F 



