CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS.* 
WHEN science was in its infancy, and when few plants were observed, 
they were described or treated without any particular arrangement; or if 
some method was adopted, it was merely empirical and of little use to 
others. Theophrastus, Dioscorides, and Pliny, who respectively treated of 
vegetables, may therefore be justly rejected as systematists; and we may 
place Gessner, born at Zurich in 1516, as the first who demonstrated that 
the characters drawn from the flowers and fruit were most to be depended 
upon. He also pointed out that certain groups possessed particular cha- 
racters in common. To him succeeded Cesalpinus: he distinguished 
vegetables into trees and herbs; with the former arranging shrubs, and 
with the latter suffruticose plants. He next divided each of these; the 
first into two classes, the last into thirteen, according to the fruit and 
situation of the embryo. In 1680 Monson offered a new system. His 
sections or secondary divisions are 108 in number, and are taken from the 
figure and substance of the fruit, the number of seeds, sepals, and petals, 
the figure of the root, the direction of the stem, the colour of the flower, 
the place of growth, and one from the medical virtues of some of the plants 
that compose it. In 1682 Ray proposed his method: he made thirty-five 
classes ; the distinguishing marks of some of which were derived from the 
habit or external appearance ; of others from a greater or less perfection of 
the plants, from their place of growth, the number of seeds, fruits, petals, 
or sepals of each flower, or from the nature of the fruit or inflorescence. — 
They were as follows:—I. Herbs.—1. Submarine or sea-plants, in- 
eluding Zoophytes and Corals. 2. Fungi. 3. Musci, including Hepatice 
and Lichens. 4. Capillares or Ferns. 5. Apetalous plants, comprehending, 
among other anomalies, the genus Equisetum. 6. Planipetale, or those 
with semi-flosculose, compound flowers, corresponding to the Cichoracee of 
Jussieu. 7. Discoidex, containing such of the Corymbiferx of Jussieu as 
have a pappus. 8. Capitate, corresponding principally to the Cynaroce- 
phale of Jussieu, but more extensive, and including all plants with tubular 
flowers that are collected into a scaly involucrum. 9. Corymbifere, similar 
to those of modern botanists, but limited to the species without a pappus. — 
10. Gymno-monosperme, or such as were supposed to have one naked 
seed; to this belongs Valeriana and Armeria, and, by some unhappy 
chance, Thalictrum. 11. Umbellifere. 12. Stellate, ———— to 
* + ‘The following abridged account of the different natural and ertifoial systems 
is taken from Avnott’s Introduction to Botany and ipod s Vegetable —_— 
