988 



Linnaeus is removed, and we are justified in venerating it, merely as 

 the beautiful structure of a past age, but which is altogether unsuited 

 to the requirements of a more enlightened generation. 



"It is, however, by junior students that the diflBculties which op- 

 pose the application of a Flora, to the practical pursuit of botany, 

 constructed on a system so diffuse as that of Natural Orders are 

 chiefly felt ; and hence, in the endeavour to render that system avail- 

 able to young botanists, it is necessary not only to arrange the orders 

 in a clear and judicious method, but to make that arrangement de- 

 pendent not on those strictly essential characters which are frequently 

 so minute as to require the aid of the dissecting-knife and microscope 

 to investigate, but on others more easily determined, yet of a less or- 

 dinal value. In the present work I have attempted to carry out these 

 views, and have therefore given analytical tables of the orders, ge- 

 nera and species, constructed on characters so practical, as, I have 

 reason to believe, may lead even the most inexperienced to the iden- 

 tification of any plant. Many botanists, from early associations and 

 long habit, prefer employing the Linnaean arrangement ; for these an 

 analysis of the genera according to that system is also prepared, 



" The method of using this book is, therefore, as follows : an un- 

 known plant is submitted to examination ; it is first tested by the 

 characters given in the analytical table of the natural orders, in order 

 to discover to which of them it belongs. That found, the student is 

 to turn to the page indicated by the number affixed to the ordinal 

 name ; he there finds the order, with its description, — the essential 

 or diagnostic characters, taken in connexion with the heading of the 

 page, being printed in italics — and with which he finds the plant 

 under examination to agree. That natural order embraces an assem- 

 blage of genera, arranged in a table similar to that of the natural 

 orders ; and by a like process, the genus to which the plant is refer- 

 rible is determined, the accuracy of which may be verified by com- 

 paring it with the generic description immediately preceding the 

 arrangement of the species. In a similar manner, the specific deno- 

 mination is discovered, observing, however, that respecting the spe- 

 cies their analyses and descriptions are incorporated. If, in the 

 course of the examination, the meaning of a word is required, the 

 student is referred to the glossary ; and should the case need it, he 

 may find the form illustrated by a figure in the frontispiece. 



" Having now obtained the specific and generic name of the plant, 

 to which order, division, sub-class, and class the plant belongs, on 

 looking at the symbols under the name of the species, he learns its 



