THE JUSSIEUS* AND THE NATUP.AL METHOD. 



BY M. FLOURENS, PERPETUAL SECRETARY OF TUE FRENCH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



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



Introduction. Few books of botany, or even natural biatory, have had more 

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

 hundred pages,) entitled : Prodromus Ilistorios Generalis Plantarum in quo 

 Familice Plantarum i^er tabulas disponuntur, Mouspelii, 1689, 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 difficult, X I thought 

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

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

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

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

 comparison with the families of men;) and as it seemed to me impossible tt> 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 afiiuity, which consists not in the parts considered 

 separately, but in the whole. 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, v/ilhout 

 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 plants may be arranged in families as we ari-ange animals ; he 

 seeks \\\id parts in which the jirincijjal char art eristic marks occur ; he sees that 

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

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

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

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



*An account of several members of the distiutruished scientific family of Jussieil will be 

 found to be embraced in the present article. "When, in 1838," says M. Flourens, "I had 

 pronounced before the academy the Eloge, of Laurent de Jussieu, M. Adrien 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 be added to show their patriarchal habits and the ties of mutual 

 regard which united them. He then confided to me certain private manuscripts which his 

 premature death has devolved on me the duty of employing, and of v/hich I have reproduced 

 some extracts in this notice." 



t Magnol was the fir.st who introduced into the Method the word "family." 

 + This method, too diffirult, though very learned \quamvis (/oc£issii!<'«m,) indicated at that 

 early period the grand division of monocotyledons and dicotyledons : hcec diinsio (that of 

 dicotyledons and monocotyledons) ad arbores ctiam extendi potest : siqiiidcm pulma ct con- 

 generes hoc respectu eodem viodo a reliquis arboribus diffcrurit quo monocotyledones a rcliquis 

 hcrbis. {Joannis Raii, Methudus Plantarum Nova, etc., lC8xJ.) 



