389 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



EXPLANATION OF THE LINN/EAN ARTI- 

 FICIAL SYSTEM. 



JL he Linnaean System is, as I have already 

 observed, professedly artificial. Its sole aim 

 is to help any one to learn the name and his- 

 tory of an unknown plant in the most easy 

 and certain manner, by first determining its 

 Class and Order in this system ; after which 

 its Genus is to be made out by comparing 

 the parts of fructification with all the generic 

 characters of that Order ; and finally its Spe- 

 cies, by examining all the specific definitions 

 of the Genus. We thus ascertain the gene- 

 ric and specific name of our plant in Linmeus, 

 and under those we find an enumeration, 

 more or less ample, of its Synonyms, or the 

 different appellations it has received from 

 other writers, with a reference to figures in 



