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he must stop, unless he know something of the natural affinities of 

 plants, without a knowledge of which, as Sir J. E. Smith well ob- 

 serves, " the science is truly a study of words, contributing nothing 

 to enlarge, little worthy to exercise, a rational mind." But in order 

 to gain a knowledge of these " natural affinities," the artificial system 

 of Linnaeus, useful as it is as an index to all that has been recorded 

 of the history and uses of plants, is by no means a necessary adjunct. 

 In teaching we have made use of Lindley's ' School Botany' to some 

 extent, and we venture to assert that that " little book " will do more 

 as an introduction to the true knowledge of plants, than any exposi- 

 tion of the Linnsean system that has ever been written ; notwithstand- 

 ing the dictum of the author of the ' Observations,' that it never will 

 enable the student to master even the rudiments of the science. 



The author further says — " After taking considerable pains to com- 

 prehend the natural system, as it is called, I have not been able to 

 find out one single advantage which it possesses; it contradicts itself 

 at every turn, is full of misrepresentation, and so far from being natu- 

 ral, brings together into the same orders plants possessed of the most 

 different qualities and appearance." And then, quoting from the Pre- 

 face to the ' Vegetable Kingdom ' the statement that a genus, order, 

 or class "is called natural, not because it exists in naiwe, but because 

 it comprehends species naturally resembling each other more than 

 they resemble anything else;" — he proceeds to give his own views of 

 some of these resemblances^ in the following words : — 



" Of these resemblances I will give some examples from Dr. Lind- 

 ley's ' Vegetable Kingdom ;' but these, let it be observed, are only a 

 small sample from a multitude, as T will refer only to such plants as 

 almost every one is familiar with. We all know a rose, and we are 

 equally well acquainted with the strawbei'ry ; but few persons, I ap- 

 prehend, would say that they ' resemble each other more than they do 

 anything else,' or that they should belong to a family of plants called 

 natural. They belong, however, to the order Rosaceae, as do many 

 others as unlike roses as can be imagined, and among these is the 

 meadow-sweet, which has no more resemblance to a rose than it has 

 to a beech-tree. Heath is not very like a rhododendron, yet by the 

 raagic power of the natural system, the heaths, rhododendrons, aza- 

 leas, and arbutuses are all domesticated together in one family or 

 order, along with others as unlike each other as possible; and so it is 

 with almost every one of the 303 orders described in the ' Vegetable 

 Kingdom.' In the order Primulaceae we have the primrose, the 

 cyclamen, and the water violet. In Ranunculacese, we find united in 



