PRELIMINARY DISCOURSES. XXTll 



already acquired a considerable knowledge of the vegetable tribes, 

 he often finds himself puzzled, and discouraged, in his attempts to 

 ascertain the names, and true position among them, of specimens 

 which are new and strange to him. In order to abate this incon- 

 venience, it has been found expedient, from time to time, to remove 

 the most discordant members of the old families, and make them 

 the types of new orders ; and in this way, the number of the orders 

 has been exceedingly multiplied. In fact, their name is legion ; 

 and the danger is, that it will soon be more difficult for the young 

 Botanist to ascertain the natural Order of a strange plant, than it 

 was to determine the genus and species, by the Linnaean method. 

 The learned and sagacious JUSSIEU who first elaborated and 

 published a Natural System, in 1789, arranged the vegetable 

 kingdom in 15 Classes, and 100 natural Orders, or Families: but 

 the great work of ENDLICHER, in 1840, gives us no less than 61 

 Classes, and 277 Orders, with Tribes, and Sub-tribes, almost in- 

 numerable. These Orders are continually multiplying ; for, when- 

 ever the acute investigations of our modern Botanists detect incom- 

 patibilities in any member of an existing family, a new Order is 

 forthwith created, for its reception and accommodation. The ex- 

 pedient is very convenient and no doubt very proper : though it 

 obviously threatens to result in an appalling multitude of Orders, 

 which may require some artificial devices, to furnish a practical 

 clew to the position of unknown plants, in the great labyrinth of 

 Flora. 



But, after all however convenient and agreeable may be the 

 aids afforded to the Beginner, by artificial methods, and however 

 intractable some genera may be, in associating with any known 

 natural Orders, it must be confessed, that the method which teaches 

 us to investigate the essential characters and true relations of 

 plants, and which enables us to arrange them in kindred groups, 

 according to their respective affinities, is the only true philosophical 

 Botany; the only method, in short, which entitles the pursuit to 

 the appellation of a Science. Although as we have just intimated 

 the relationship between the members of some natural orders, as 

 at present constituted, is not very striking, yet there are numerous 

 and vast groups, composed of plants so obviously related to each 

 other, that all the world both learned and unlearned have con- 

 curred in referring them to the same family. Of these, it is suf- 

 ficient to mention, here, the great natural Orders of Grasses, Um- 

 belliferous, and Leguminous Plants and those bearing what are 

 called Syngenesious, or Compound Flowers. We may add, moreover, 



