362 PHYTOGRAPHY, 



What is now termed the specific character was the specific name 

 with Linnaeus and his predecessors ; what we call the specific, 

 Linnaeus called the trivial name. (703.) 



747. Subordination of characters and the avoidance of vain 

 repetitions require that as far as possible regard being had to 

 the form of the work the ordinal character should contain 

 only what is needful to circumscribe it, and to exhibit clearly 

 its morpholog}* ; that the characters of tribes or other divisions 

 should not reassert any portion of the ordinal character, nor 

 the generic character that of the superior groups ; and so of the 

 sections and subdivisions of all grades down to the species. 

 Equally from the specific character should be excluded every 

 thing which belongs to the generic, or is common to its rela- 

 tives generally, or has been already specified in the section or 

 its subdivisions. So, likewise, of the varieties under the spe- 

 cies. This can be done only by so arranging the species as best 

 to exhibit their relationships, that is, by bringing together or 

 into proximity those of greatest resemblance in all respects, 

 or in the more important respects. What these are, and how a 

 just subordination of characters is to be apprehended, cannot 

 be taught by rules, but must be learned by experience and 

 from the critical study of the classical botanical works. No one 

 is competent to describe new plants without such study, and 

 without a clear conception of the position which a supposed 

 new specie^ should occup}' in its genus, or a genus in its order. 



748. Characters of orders, genera, and of all intermediate 

 groups, are drawn almost without exception from the organs of 

 fructification. In the description, these parts are mostly taken 

 in order, beginning with the calyx and ending with the ovary, 

 the fruit, seed, embiyo. But, as to the orders, some writers pre- 

 fer to preface these proper characters with a general sketch of 

 those derived from the vegetation, which, albeit of less syste- 

 matic value generally, are often very characteristic of particular 

 families. Rubiacese, for example, are known by their opposite 

 entire and simple leaves and intervening stipules, along with a 

 few floral characters ; Sarraceniacese, b}- tubular or pitcher-like 

 leaves, along with a certain combination of a few other charac- 



ficially together, as they might be in an artificial key, and as very unlike 

 genera often were in his sexual system ; by the second meaning the distinc- 

 tions, the fewer the better, which will separate a group from its nearest 

 relatives ; by the third, all real marks of difference, ?'. e. all afforded by the 

 organs of fructification, which only were taken into account for genera, &c. 

 Upon the construction of this natural character Linnaeus prided himself, 

 and justly. These are the characters in his Genera Plantarum. 



