33& STUDIES OF NATURE* 



The great clafs of the gramineous plants being 

 thus apportioned to Man and animals, other plants 

 would prefent ftill greater facility in their appro- 

 priations, becaufe they are much lefs numerous. 

 Of the fifteen hundred and fifty fpecies of plants, 

 enumerated by Sebajiian le Vaillant in the country 

 adjacent to Paris, there are more than a hundred 

 families, among which that of the graffes compre- 

 hends, for it's (hare, eighty-five fpecies, exclufive 

 of twenty-fix varieties, and our different forts of 

 corns. It is the moil numerous next to that of 

 mufhrooms, which contains a hundred and ten 

 fpecies, and that of moffes, which contains eighty- 

 fix. Thus, inftead of the fyftematic claffification 

 of botanic Writers, which gives no explanation of 

 the ufes of mofl of the vegetable parts, which fre- 

 quently confounds plants the mofl heterogeneous, 

 and feparates thofe of the fame genus, we mould 

 have an order fimple, eafy, agreeable, and of an 

 infinite extent, which pafiing from Man to ani- 

 mals, to vegetables, and to the elements, would 

 difcover to us the plants which ferve to our ufe, 

 and to that of other fenfible Beings, would render 

 to each of them it's elementary relations, to each 

 fite on the Earth it's vegetable beauty, and would 

 replenifh the heart of Man with admiration and 

 gratitude. This plan appears fo much the more con- 

 formable to that of Nature, that it is entirely com- 

 prehended 



