260 THE JUSSIEUS AND THE NATURAL METHOD. 



containing but one seed, or composite and divided into different loculaments, and 

 the seeds have their appropriate form. 



" There are, besides these particulars, bodies which are met with in the flowers, 

 either on the petals, or simply adherent to these petals, to the calices, to the base of 

 the embryons of the ovaries, where they appear as tubeicles, cornets, ornamental 

 leaves, or narrow strips. As they serve to secrete, in the interior of the 

 flowers, a juice or honeyed liquid, modern botanists have given them the name of 

 nectarium; it is important to remark, in any flowers, whether this body exists, 

 what part it occupies, and what is its conformation You well know that in 

 plants some are hermaphrodites ; others bear only flowers with stamens, and are 

 males; others, winch are females, have only pistils; there are some which, on 

 the same stalk, are furnished, at different places, with distinct male and female 

 flowers ; we see what it is proper to observe, and also what is wanting in the char- 

 acters which have been established in the methods we possess respecting plants. 

 If you have time to labor more at botany, you will do well to verify all that 

 may suggest itself to you in reference to the principles I have above indicated ; 

 you will not only find in the occupation a source of pleasure, but will be enabled 

 by your researches to correct, reform, and authenticate more particularly what- 

 ever information is attainable respecting the plants of the colony of Cayenne., 

 Jn adapting your phraseology to the plants Avhich you shall arrange according 

 to species, do not make use of comparisons, but express, in few words, the specific 

 mark which you perceive in a species, which serves to distinguish it from those 

 yoii already know ; if you know but one of the species, it is useless to bestow 

 upon it other phrases than the name it bears or which you may assign it, for we 

 should not distinguish a species which is unique ; this would be to distinguish 

 the known from the unknown, and the consequence is obvious. I write in haste, 

 and may have failed to explain myself clearly ; have the goodness to supply 

 what is wanting, by omitting no circumstance of what you see in the plants you 

 vvish to describe ; be on your guard respecting the varieties which cultivation or 

 a difference of soil may present ; these should be left to the amateurs of flowers 

 and fruits. Adieu, my dear colleague."* 



§ 4. — The catalogue of Trianon. 



The papers which contain this valuable memorial, the first foundation of the 

 aatural method, are inscribed with this title : Order established by M. Bernard de 

 Jussieufor the plants in the garden of Trianon, in 1759 ; v/ith a notification by 

 Laurent, importing that " from this catalogue, written by his own hand, was 

 copied that printed in the Genera Plantariimy\ 



In this catalogue of Trianon, everything is reduced to a list of names ; but 

 *hese names are arranged in a determinate order, and that happily-conceived 

 order has been found to contain the key of the natural method. Linnreus also 

 had, before Bernard, given in his Classes plantarum (1738) a series of names, 

 fragments, as he expresses it, of the natural method — Fragmenta naturalis 

 methodi. How comes it, then, that the names of Linnaeus have produced nothing, 

 and that those of Bernard have produced the method ? Simply because Lin- 

 .iseus failed to discover the true order, while Bernard discovered and disclosed it. 



* To this letter attention is due, as important in the history of Bernard's progress towards 

 the natural method. It was necessary to commence by establishing the complete cnmueration 

 of the characters, before proceeding to their appreciation, their relative vahration, the great 

 principle of the subordination of characters. Tliis letter is of J7;iS, the catalogue of Trianon 

 of 1759. Bernard does not hurry himself, but he is always advanciug. 



t To this M. Adrieu de Jussieu has subjoined the following: "The catalogue printed in 

 the Genera plantarum differs from it in some points: in the suppression of citations and 

 f^ynonyms, the intercalation of certain species written in general l)y the hand of A. L. de 

 Jussieu, the omission of name in some families, and even the division of some of them. The 

 arraugment of all the hypogynous monopetaleaj is here different, another manuscript, of the 

 date of 17()5, having been followed in the printed copy, in relation to this group alone." 



