[BOOK. in. 



BOOK III. 



GLOSSOLOGY ; OK OF THE TERMS USED IN BOTANY. 



IN order to comprehend the language of botanists, it is 

 necessary that the unusual terms or words which are employed 

 in writing upon plants, and which are either different 

 from words in vulgar use, or which are in Botany employed 

 in a particular sense, should be fully explained. 



It is a very common plan to mix up Glossology with 

 Organography, or to confound the definition and explanation 

 of those characteristic terms of the science which are univer- 

 sally applicable, with the description of particular organs : 

 but this plan is attended with many inconveniences, and is 

 far less simple than to treat of the two separately. It was 

 an error into which Linnseus fell, in composing his admirable 

 Philosophic/, Botanica ; and is the more remarkable, if the 

 logical precision with which that work is otherwise composed 

 be considered. Instead of distinguishing those terms which 

 have a general application to all plants or parts of plants, 

 according to circumstances, from such as have a particular 

 application, and relate only to special modifications, he placed 

 under his definition of each organ those terms which he knew 

 to be applicable to it; but, as it was not his practice to 

 repeat terms after they had been once explained, it frequently 

 happened that beginners in the science, finding a given term 

 explained once only, and with reference to a particular organ, 

 fell into the mistake of supposing that that term was appli- 

 cable only to the organ under which it was explained. To 

 avoid this difficulty, other botanists have collected under each 

 organ all the terms which could by possibility be applied to 

 it, and have repeated them over and over again without regard 



