INTRODUCTION. Xi 
vegetable kingdom is, beyond comparison, superior to all that went before it and though the 
classes, in which the orders are grouped, be somewhat arbitrary, they are yet so convenient, and 
generally so easily distinguishable in practice, as to leave little room to doubt that the arrange- 
ment as a whole, owes much of its celebrity and its recent almost universal adoption, to that very 
blemish. Various attempts have however been made to remove that imperfection from this 
justly admired system, but, so far as I am able to judge, all only serve to show, that had Jussieu 
adopted any such arrangement, in place of his own, in the first instance, there is much reason to 
pe the sexual system, with all its imperfections, would still have reigned paramount in 
any. 
© Jussieu leone’ prefixed no names to his classes, and the want of this was much 
objected to. Those which we have given have been lately proposed by Antoine L. de Jussieu 
in the Dictionnaire des Shtanaes Naturelles; and, although not entirely in unison with the 
pipe of the Greek language, may be adopted as extremely useful, each being so framed as 
suggest the structure of the class. Thus ts commencement Mono, indicates the Monoco- 
tvledienss Epistaminede, &c. having in no part any allusion to a corolla, suggests its absence. 
Hypocoroliae, and the others, allude to the corolla being of one piece, and not of distinct petals, 
which last is pointed out by names, Epipetalae, &c. The other parts of the names, epi (pon), 
peri (around), and hypo (under), need no farther explanation. 
While engaged in the study of plants alone, it is obviously of little consequence whether 
we begin, as Jussieu did, by the Acotyledones, or by the Dicotyledones ; but if we view botany 
asa science that treats of only one of the great kingdoms of nature, and wish to introduce it 
intoa Systema Naturae, we must bring those portions of each most closely together which are 
most nearly linked. So that if we commence by Zoology, we must first describe the Mammalia, 
and end by those of a simple eg ee and then take up the most allied of the Acotyledones, 
and follow the steps of Jussieu. But if we describe i ogee in the first place, we must begin 
with the Dicotyledones, and finish with the Acotyledon When, however, a Systema vegeta- 
bilium is contemplated without reference to animals, it ‘ting perhaps smooth the way to the stu- 
dent if it commence by those more obvious, and, though of more complex formation, yet more 
simple to be comprehended. On this account DeCandolle has reversed the arrangement of 
Jussieu.” (Article Botany Encyl. Brit. 7th Ed. by Dr. Arnott.) 
