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X. On the Classification of Vegetables, By the . 

 Rev. Patrick Keith, F,L.S,* 



/CLASSIFICATION may be defined to be the arranging 

 ^^ of the productions of nature in a system, so as either to 

 show the mutual relation which the several subjects or groups 

 of subjects bear to one another in the scale of being, or merely 

 to facilitate our ascertaining of the names which have been im- 

 posed upon them by their discoverers or others. In the for- 

 mer case the classification is natural, and is exemplified, as 

 far as regards plants, in the arrangements of Jussieu. In the 

 latter case the classification is artificial, and is exemphfied, as 

 far as regards plants, in the arrangements of Linnaeus. After 

 all, this distinction, as M. Raspail well observes tj is more 

 trenchant in expression than in reality, as every good classifi- 

 cation will have something in it both of the one quality and 

 of the other. 



Linnaeus, as every one knows, founded his classes chiefly 

 upon the number of the stamens, and his orders upon the 

 number of the styles. But as distinctions arising from num- 

 ber merely are of themselves entirely artificial, so is the sy- 

 stem that is founded upon them. They do not necessarily give 

 any indication of natural groups, and yet it is singular enough 

 that this artificial system has brought together several tribes 

 of plants that are perfectly natural, as the Grasses, the Papilio- 

 naceae, the Cruciferae. Still the study of it gives the disciple 

 but little knowledge of a plant beyond the name. He counts 

 his stamens and pistils, and becomes a perfect master of classes 

 and orders ; but of the interior and more recondite parts and 

 properties, whether of stem or of flower, by which different 

 genera are allied and connected together, that is, of the natu- 

 ral affinities of plants, he knows nothing. Yet this, asLinnagus 

 himself admitted, is the grand end and aim of all botanical 

 investigation. " Methodus naturalis, hinc, ultimus Jinis Bota- 

 7iices est et erit J." If he had ^xxtfuit into his maxim it would 

 still have been equally true, for all inventors of systems, even 

 from the earliest times, have had an eye to a natural me- 

 thod. The very division of plants into herbs, shrubs, and 

 trees, the oldest and most popular of all, as well as the most 

 humble in its pretensions, is founded upon a presumed or ap- 

 parent affinity between the subjects of its different groups. 

 This division is at least as ancient as the age of Theophrastus, 

 if not, rather, as ancient as that of Moses, who speaks of grass, 

 herb, and tree as comprehending and exhausting the whole of 



* Communicated by the Author. 



t Chim. Organ., p. 84. \ Phil. Bot., p. 137. 



