COMPOUND FLOWERS. 311 



too great violence to Nature, and swerving 

 from that beautiful and philosophical Lin- 

 nsean principle, of characterizing genera by 

 the fructification alone ; a principle which 

 those who are competent to the subject at 

 all, will, I believe, never find to fail. The 

 seeds and flowers of the umbelliferous family 

 are quite sufficient for our purpose, while the 

 involucrum is very precarious and change- 

 able ; often deficient, often immoderately 

 luxuriant, in the same genus. In the cymose 

 plants every body knows the real parts of 

 fructification to be abundantly adequate, the 

 involucrum being of small moment ; witness 

 that most natural genus Cornus. For all 

 these, and other reasons, to particularize 

 which would lead me too far, I have, p. 236, 

 reckoned the Umbel and Cyme modes of 

 flowering, and not themselves aggregate 

 flowers. 



