204 Dr Daubeny on the Writings and 



guisbing feature in the character of this great botanist, that, 

 so much in advance as he appears to have been of most of his 

 cotemporaries, he should have nevertheless abstained for so 

 many years from the publication of any work expressly designed 

 for the elucidation, either of the physiology of plants, or of 

 those principles of classification of which he appears to have 

 had so clear a conception, and should have confined himself, 

 as it would appear, exclusively to a laborious accumulation of 

 facts, calculated to illustrate and to confirm his principles, be- 

 fore he indulged himself in a fuller development of them. 



From the period at which he became associated with La- 

 marck in the publication of the Flore Fran9aise, till the year 

 1812, he was employed almost incessantly in studying the de- 

 tails of the botany and agriculture of France ; and in the course 

 of that time, as he himself assures us, traversed the whole of 

 that QKtensive country, herborising in every province, and 

 presenting each year to the Government a report, embodying 

 the results of his labours and researches during the preceding 

 summer. 



Nor could he have chosen a better method for at once en- 

 larging his views of nature, and putting to the test the truths 

 of his preconceived views ; the compilation of a local Flora, 

 indeed, may only be serviceable in disciplining the mind to 

 habits of accurate observation, but the survey of a country so 

 large as France then was, combining such an extent of geo- 

 graphical range, and so many differences of local position, 

 would also expand our views of nature, by furnishing us with 

 examples of a very large proportion of vegetable forms, speci- 

 mens of the productions of a considerable variety of distinct 

 countries. 



Thus, the flora of Picardy and Normandy is analogous to 

 that of the neighbouring coasts of England, or of the Nether- 

 lands, that of the centre of France approaches, in the charac- 

 ter of its vegetation, to the south of Germany, and that of 

 Languedoc to the north of Spain ; whilst the neighbourhood 

 of Toulon and of Hyeres partakes even of the climate of 

 southern Italy — for the orange and the date, which thrive 

 along many parts of the Gulf of Genoa, do not reappear till we 

 reach a latitude somewhat more southern than that of Rome. 



