1012 



Mr. Edmonstou professes himself unable to discover. Now as to 

 these oscillatory groups, it is a curious circumstance that Mr. Edmon- 

 ston has kindly furnished me with an excellent illustration of an oscil- 

 latory group, in the succeeding page to that in which he declares he 

 has never been able to find one! The genus Detarinm has, it ap- 

 pears, the icosandrous stamens and drupaceous fi'uit of Amygdalaceae, 

 with the compound leaves of Leguminaceae, and is hence interme- 

 mediate between the two orders, partaking the characters of each, 

 and intimately connecting them. Both these orders are extremely 

 natural, so much so, that a person completely ignorant of the princi- 

 ples of Botany would be able to group the species composing them 

 together, as bearing the greatest possible resemblance to each other. 

 Now the genus Detarium forms the oscillatory group connecting 

 Amygdalaceae with Leguminaceae ; belonging strictly to neither, but 

 common to both : and hence this genus may be placed by one bota- 

 nist under Amygdalaceae, by another under Leguminaceae, according 

 as certain characters are valued by each. But because Detarium re- 

 sembles Amygdalaceae in every particular save its compound leaves, 

 compound leaves form the only distinctive character between Amyg- 

 dalaceae and Leguminaceae. This, I submit, is an example of false 

 loo-ic of the drawing forth a general rule from an exception ; the 

 making the exception the rule'.!! 



Every one is capable of classing the common leguminous plants of 

 our gardens and fields into one group; of seeing that the pea and 

 bean and vetch are closely related to each other. Now the fact that 

 the veriest ignoramus is capable of such classification shows that such 

 relationship exists. Now on turning to Withering s Arrangement, I 

 find all the leguminous plants very snugly ensconced under the shel- 

 tering wings of Diadelphia Decandria ; but turning to the descrip- 

 tions of the genera, I find that Genista, Ulex, Ononis, Anthyllis &c. 

 are really monadelphous, while Pisum, Orobus, Lathyrus and others 

 are as truly diadelphous. Again, any moderately intelligent person 

 v.'ould select the grasses from any confused heap of specimens, because 

 their resemblance is most striking ; but on the Linnaean system this 

 most natural order must be broken up. Anthoxanthum is in the same 

 work placed in Diandria, while the remainder form part of Triandria. 

 But in truth the grasses form part of the following Linnaean classes ; 

 Monandria, Diandria, Triandria, Tetrandria, Hexandria, Moncecia 

 and Polvgamia. This, then, is the exactitude and certainty of the 

 Limiaian system !!! Has it really so great facilities for the detection 

 of species ? Suppose a person, who is simply acquainted with 



