THE NATURAL SYSTEM 311 
same or similar names. As examples may be mentioned 
the Palme or palms, Gramina or grasses, Orchidee or or- 
chids, Composite or composites, Conifere or conifers, and 
Filices or ferns. 
During the life-time of Linnzus, the only other important 
attempt at a natural classification was made by Bernard 
de Jussieu, of France, who was a correspondent of Linnzus, 
and was in charge of the royal botanic garden at Trianon. 
Here he grouped the plants as far as he could in natural 
orders, but he published nothing. In 1789, two years after 
the death of Linnzeus, Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, nephew 
of Bernard, published a classification of genera under natural 
orders, one hundred in number. These were carefully de- 
fined by suitable characters, and thus constituted the first 
thoroughgoing attempt at a natural system. Not only were 
the genera grouped into well-defined orders, but the attempt 
was made to group the orders into higher and higher series, 
expressive of their degrees of likeness. 
On the foundation thus laid over a century ago the natural 
system now in general use has been slowly developing; the 
work of improvement is still going on, and more rapidly 
than ever before. Eventually the science of botany may . 
boast of a systematic classification founded upon, and, in a 
way, expressing, a full knowledge of vegetable forms. Yet, 
as we shall hope to show in a future chapter, there are good 
reasons for believing that such an ideal classification will 
embody in very large part the distinctions at present recog- 
nized, or in other words, that the main features of a truly 
natural system are fairly well established. The next genera- 
tion of botanists will doubtless have the advantage of a far 
better classification, especially of cryptogams, than that in 
use to-day; but we may well believe that their classification 
will be essentially the same in general principle and in its 
main features as that now used. To develop the present 
system has been a gigantic task, beset with many difficulties; 
and before we can rightly understand the outcome of all 
this botanical labor, we must consider still further the diff- 
culties overcome. Until we have mastered certain of these 
ourselves we are not fitted either to appreciate or to use to 
