406 NATURAL SYSTEM 



especially, in his 14th edition of the book 

 just mentioned, has inserted new plants with- 

 out any regard to this original plan of the 

 work. 



From the foregoing remarks it is easy to 

 comprehend what is the real and highly im- 

 portant use of the Genera Plant arum of 

 Jussieu arranged in Natural Orders, the most 

 learned botanical work that has appeared 

 since the Species Plant arum of Linnaeus, 

 and the most useful to those who study the 

 philosophy of botanical arrangement. The 

 aim of this excellent author is to bring the 

 genera of plants together as much as possible 

 according to their natural affinities ; con- 

 structing his Classes and Orders rather from 

 an enlarged and general view of those affini- 

 ties, than from technical characters previ- 

 ously assumed for each Class or Order ; ex- 

 cept great and primary divisions, derived 

 chiefly from the Cotyledons, the Petals, and 

 the insertion of the Stamens. But his cha- 

 racters are so far from absolute, that at the 

 end of almost every Order we find a number 

 of genera merely related to it, and not pro- 

 perly belonging to it, and at the end of the 



