THE JUSSIEUS* AND THE NATURAL METHOD. 



BY M. FLOUREXS, PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY OF SCIEXCES. 



Translated for the Smithsonian Institution by C. A. Alexander. 



Introduction. Few books of botany, or even natnral history, have had more 

 success than the small treatise of Magnolf (I say small, for it has less than a 

 hundred pages,) entitled : Prodromus Ilistoricc GeneraUs Plantarum in quo 

 Fannlia; Plantarum j)er tabulas dis]>omintur, Monspelii, 16S9. The fine preface 

 of this little book — and it is only the preface which is fine — comprises but thirteen 

 pages ; and the name of Magnol, (such is the vitality inherent in ideas of a 

 high order, when they are also the first, and touch upon some great problem,) 

 can never be forgotten. 



"After having examined," says Magnol, "the methods most in use, and found 

 that of Morison insufficient and defective, that of Ray too diflicult, i: I thought 

 that I could perceive in plants an affinity, according to the degrees of which it 

 might be possible to arrange them in diflFerent families, as it is customary to 

 classify animals. This relation between animals and vegetables has given me 

 occasion to reduce plants into certain fiimilies, (for thus I would call them by 

 comparison with the families of men j) and as it seemed to me impossible to derive 

 the character of these families from the fructification alone, I have chosen the 

 parts of the plants wherein the principal characteristic marks are met with, 

 such as the roots, stalks, flowers, and seeds ; in a number of plants there is even 

 a certain similitude, a certain affinity, which consists not in the parts considered 

 separately, but in the Avhole. I doubt not that the characters of families may 

 also be drawn from the first leaves of the germ at its exit from the grain. I 

 have therefore followed the order observed by those parts of plants in which 

 are to be found the principal and distinctive marks of families, and, without 

 confining myself to a single part, have often considered several together." 



There are many ideas in this page, and all of a striking character. Magnol 

 perceives that 7:'/?««/* ?rt«^ i<? arroTiged in Jamilles as we arrange animals; he 

 seeks the j^aris in w/nch the 2y^inr/pal chararteristir, marlis occur ; he sees that 

 the characters of families may he derived from the first leaves of the germ, Sfc. 

 And yet how much uncertainty is still apparent — how much vagueness ! Some- 

 times he considers such or such parts separately, the roots, the floiccrs, the 

 seeds ; sometimes he considers several of them together ; sometimes he con- 



*An account of several members of the disting-uished scientific family of Jussieu will be 

 found to be embrat'ed in the present article. "When, in 18.38," says M. Flourens, "I had 

 pronounced before the academy the Z^/o^e of Laurent de Jussieu, M. Adrieu de Jussieu ex- 

 pressed to me an earnest wish that the study should be extended to all the members of his family, 

 and that some details might bo added to show their patriarchal habits and the ties of nuitual 

 lejjard which uuited them. He then confided to me certain private manuscripts which his 

 premature death has devolved on me the duty of employing, and of which I have reproduced 

 some extracts in this notice." 



t Magnol was the first who introduced into the Method the word "firmily." 

 + This method, too difficult, though very learned {quuiinis rfocKss;'.* ^nn,) indicated at that 

 early period the grand division of monocotyledons and dicotyledons: luce dirisio {i\\3^, oi 

 dicotyledons and monocotyledons) ad arborcs etium extendi -potest : siquidein palma et con- 

 ffeneres lioc '^cspectu codeni modo a reliquis arboribiis differunt quo monocotyledones a rcliquis 

 lierbis. {Joannis Raii, Metliodus Planturum Nova, etc., Hi62.) 



