48 MEMOIR OF RAY. 



This method, like the former, is in a considerable 

 degree founded on the fruit, but the other parts 

 are adopted without hesitation whenever they afford 

 strongly marked characters of distinction. One of 

 its principal merits consists in assigning a distinct 

 class to the palms, which had scarcely been recog- 

 nised in any previous system. The arrangement of 

 the other trees, according to the nature of the fruc- 

 tification, which was the most defective part of the 

 first method, is also deserving of high commenda- 

 tion. " But the chief glory of Ray's second method," 

 says the Rev. Mr Wood, " arises from its taking the 

 lead in distributing plants according to the number 

 of their cotyledons. This, indeed, no one would 

 suspect from the tabular view of it, as it stands in 

 Philosophia Botanica ; nor does it appear in Ray's 

 own table of contents, which Linnaeus has very 

 carelessly transcribed and unwarrantably abridged. 

 But the distinction is clearly pointed out and ex- 

 plained in the work itself, into which one would 

 think that Linnaeus had never looked. " Floriferas 

 dividemus," is the perspicuous language of Ray, 

 " in dicotyledones, quarum semina sata binis foliis 

 anomalis seminal ibus dictis, quae cotyledonum usum 

 praestant, e terra exeunt, vel in binas saltern lobos 

 dividuntur, quamvis eos supra terram foliorum spe- 

 cie non efferant ; et monocotyledones, quae nee folia 

 seminalia bina efferunt, nee binos lobos condunt. 

 Haec divisio ad arbores etiam extendi potest ; si- 

 quidem palmae et congeneres hoc respectu eodem 



