590 



naeus. Yet nothing can be more positive to the contrary 

 than the remarks of the latter, in the preface to his Or- 

 dines Naturales at the end of his Genera Plantarum. He 

 there declares that his " artificial method is alone of use 

 to ascertain plants, it being scarcely possible to find a 

 key to the natural one." "Natural orders," he continues, 

 " serve to teach the nature of plants, artificial ones to 

 distinguish one plant from another." If it be said that 

 Jussieu, having invented a key, or a set of distinctive cha- 

 racters, to his orders, has removed this objection, we 

 would ask, What becomes of his doubtful genera, as nu- 

 merous as those of Linnaeus ? or moreover, How is any 

 student, using his system analytically, to make out a 

 single unknown plant ? That the pupils of Jussieu have 

 ever been aware of this, the writer of the present essay 

 very well knows. He has always found them, in conver- 

 sation, aiming compliments at their illustrious master, 

 by contending for the great difficulty and uncertainty of 

 the Linnaean artificial system ; by which palpable absur- 

 dity they betrayed their secret opinion of Jussieu's. On 

 the other hand, the intelligent and candid DeCandolle, 

 adopting thejust opinion of Linnaeus, that plants are allied 

 to each other rather in the form of a table, or map, than 

 in a linear series ; actually proposes such a series as neces- 

 sarily artificial, in his Theorie Element aire de Botanique, 

 213. Concerning the precise disposition of the genera 

 in this series, we believe scarcely two botanists would 

 agree; nor might their contentions be unprofitable ; but 

 they would never teach, either a tyro or an adept, to as- 

 certain an unknown plant. We will venture to go further, 

 and to declare our opinion, founded on long observation, 

 that botanists who are thus perpetually intent on the abs- 

 tract theory of classification, scarcely attain any excel- 

 lence in the technical discrimination, or definition, of 

 what are really founded in nature, the species or genera 

 of the vegetable kingdom. Those err greatly who seek 

 to improve the system of Jussieu, or any other, by refining 



