appearance of this celebrated and original memoir in the pre- 

 sent year, I consider it more advantageous to reserve my views 

 on its results for the next report. 



It is well known what importance M. Schultz attaches to the 

 milky sap or proper vessels, but it is still better known that 

 other botanists do not concur in his views ; we find that the 

 most distinguished physiologists of our time have entirely con- 

 tested the most important points of these doctrines. Hitherto 

 I was the only observer who defended against unjust attacks 

 the statements respecting the circulation of the sap and the 

 existence of a distinct vascular system, as M. Schultz and se- 

 veral others had previously taught. I did not proceed further 

 into this theory of the circulation in plants, for my own ob- 

 servations differed almost constantly from those of M. Schultz. 

 Notwithstanding this general opposition of physiologists, M. 

 Schultz still asserts, that the vegetable kingdom can, properly 

 speaking, be naturally divided only in accordance with his dis- 

 coveries respecting the circulating system as laid down in his 

 system of plants. I perceive this at least from a eulogium of 

 this system, which a scholar of M. Schultz, a student from En- 

 gland, by name Ch. S n, has published under the form of 



a review of Meyen's New System of Vegetable Physiology, i. 

 Berlin, 1837, in the November Number of 183? of the Jahr- 

 buchfur wissenschaftlichen Kritik. In this anonymous produc- 

 tion it is plainly stated that my system of vegetable physiology 

 does not fulfil its object, because no notice is taken of the 

 application of M. Schultz' s discoveries to the basis of a na- 

 tural system of plants. I need only remark by way of ex- 

 planatory appendix, that M. Schultz has a considerable share 

 in the editing of the above Journal. 



As to the utility of a system of plants, be it founded on 

 actual or alleged anatomical or physiological discoveries, the 

 opinion of systematists alone can decide, and these (I will 

 only mention M. DeCandolle,) have declared themselves totally 

 against the system of M. Schultz. 



