362 CHARACTERS 



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hence follows one of the most just and valu- 

 able of all his principles, that a genus should 

 furnish a character, not a character form a 

 genus ; or, in other words, that a certain co- 

 incidence of structure, habit, and perhaps 

 qualities, among a number of plants, should 

 strike the judgment of a botanist, before he 

 fixes on one or more technical characters, by 

 which to stamp and define such plants as one 

 natural genus. Thus the Hemerocallis cceru- 

 lea, Andr. Repos. t. 6, and alba, t. 194, 

 though hitherto referred by all botanists to 

 that genus, are so very different from the 

 other species in habit, that a discriminative 

 character might with confidence be expected 

 in some part or other of their fructification, 

 and such a character is accordingly found in 

 the winged seeds. Yet in the natural genera 

 of Arenaria and Spergula, winged or bor- 

 dered seeds are so far from indicating a di- 

 stinct genus, that it is doubtful whether they 

 are sufficient to constitute even a specific 

 character. See Engl. Bot. t. 958, 1535 and 

 1536. So Blandfordia, Exot. Bot. t. 4, is 

 well distinguished from Aletris, with which 

 some botanists have confounded it, by its 



