Dr. Lindley's Natural System of Botany. 293 



Jussieu as a writer who " lias greatly improved upon the natural 

 orders of Linnaeus."* We have no hesitation, however, in express- 

 ing our conviction that no single work has had such a general and 

 favorable influence upon the advancement of botanical science in 

 this country, as the American edition of Dr. Lindley's Introduction 

 to the Natural System. This treatise, however useful, was indeed 

 not absolutely indispensable to the favored few, who, aided by the 

 works of Jussieu, Brown, De Candolle, the elder and younger Rich- 

 ard, &c. were already successfully and honorably pursuing their in- 

 vestigations ; but to the numerous cultivators of botany throughout 

 the country, who could seldom be expected to possess, or have ac- 

 cess to, well furnished libraries, and to whom the writings of these 

 great luminaries of the science were mostly unknown except by 

 name, this publication was a truly welcome acquisition, conferring 

 advantages which those alone who have pursued their studies under 

 such unfavorable circumstances can fully appreciate. 



A second and greatly improved edition of this work having ap- 

 peared within the past year, it occurred to the writer of these re- 

 marks, that a cursory notice of it might not be unacceptable to the 

 readers of the American Journal of Science. We do not intend, in 

 these observations, to engage in a defense of what is called the Nat- 

 ural System of Botany ; but take it for granted, that the science can 

 by no other method be successfully and philosophically pursued : or, 



* Dr. Lindley is quite right in his remark that the chief difficulties the student 

 has to encounter in the study of botany, upon the principles of the Natural System, 

 have been very much exaggerated by persons who have written upon the subject 

 without understanding it. To refer to a single instance. In the fifth edition of 

 the Manual of Botany, by Mr. Eaton, an account of the Natural Orders of Jussieu 

 is given, in which the genera Ambrosia and Xanthium are referred to Urticeae ; 

 and in a note it is added, " Some botanists place the last two genera in the order Co- 

 rymbifcrcc, also in the Linnccan class Syngcncsia. I see no good reason for these in- 

 novations." Now Linnreus, in his artificial arrangement, certainly did place these 

 genera (and also Parthcnium and Iva,) in Moncecia Pentandria; but the inno- 

 vator in this instance, is Jussieu himself, who never referred these two genera to 

 Urticeae, but places them in his order Corymbifcrcc, (Compositae,) where they truly 

 belong. The descriptions of Natural Orders in Eaton's Manual, purporting to be 

 taken from Jussieu, bear a very remote resemblance indeed to the ordinal char- 

 acters of the admirable Genera Plantarum of that author, while the occasional 

 criticisms on its supposed errors afford the clearest proof that the work was not 

 understood by the author alluded to. It should be recollected that, previously to 

 the reprint of Dr. Lindley's Introduction, Mr. Eaton's Manual was the only work 

 professing to give a view of the Natural System, within the reach of the great ma- 

 jority of the botanical students of this country, excepting, perhaps, the American 

 edition of Smith's Grammar of Botany. 



