B O T A N Y. 



593 



aged botanist. For the pencil of the female artist, 

 where can such elegance of form and delicacy of 

 colour be found for imitation as in the parterre ? or 

 what can embellish the dwellings of the rich, or cot- 

 tages of the poor, more than the floral products of 

 vegetation ? 



Many are lovers of flowers who are not at the same 

 time botanists. This feeling is as innocent as it is 

 rational ; it is a source of pleasure, but only in a sub- 

 ordinate degree to that enjoyed by those who to their 

 love of flowers add scientific knowledge ; who not 

 only know (he name, but can tell to what class or 

 tribe the plant belongs whether native or foreign 

 whether sanatory or noxious. No portion of human 

 lore in natural phenomena yields more gratification to 

 the well constituted mind than a scientific knowledge 

 of plants. 



To be a practical or professional botanist requires 

 a long lifetime of close application and study. To 

 store in memory nearly one hundred thousand names 

 requires a power of retention enjoyed by few ; and to 

 nomenclature must be added a knowledge of the 

 history of plants their natural habitat as well 

 as their culture: without an intimate acquaint- 

 ance with these things no one can be a practical 

 botanist. 



Such a portion of knowledge is not merely a mental 

 embellishment, nor is it merely an elegant amuse- 

 ment ; though it may be employed as such by the 

 affluent, yet it is in many respects eminently useful. 

 To the medical man a knowledge of botany is indis- 

 pensable ; the virtues of plants are almost as various 

 as are the genera ; and their essential qualities furnish 

 a very large proportion of materia medica. In the 

 arts the products of vegetables are universally em- 

 ployed ; and their value, as supplying articles of 

 human diet, &c., hardly need be mentioned. 



That both the culinary and medical uses of plants 

 were discovered without the assistance of scientific 

 botany, is perfectly true ; but as the latter has been 

 so much improved, discoveries for either purpose are 

 made with much more certainty and success. There 

 was a time when herbalism, or the study of the 

 medical virtues of plants, was carried to an extrava- 

 gant length, but since the excellent science of 

 chemistry has been so closely united to that of 

 medicine, the dreams and fooleries of astrological 

 herbalism have been deservedly driven from the 

 schools. That different plants possess different quali- 

 ties is well known ; and it is observable that the same 

 qualities prevail, in a greater or lesser degree, in 

 every species of the same genus. In this point ol 

 view, the Jussieuan system is superior to every other. 

 This, indeed, is one of its most useful traits ; because, 

 if the predominating qualities of any one plant of a 

 family, or, in many cases of an order, are known, it 

 may be safely assumed that all the others partake ol 

 the same. Thus in the Cruciformes of Tournefort, 

 the Tetradynamia of Linnaeus, and the Cruciferce oi 

 Jussieu (all different titles for the same family o! 

 plants), an acrid yet wholesome quality is found more 

 or less in every species. Although this be pretty 

 generally the case among the families of plants which 

 Jussieu has placed together in the same order, yet 

 there are some exceptions. Wholesome and poison- 

 ous plants are sometimes found in the same order 

 and this circumstance has been laid hold of to bring 

 the whole natural system into disrepute by those who 

 are averse to the study of it. Those opponents affirm 

 NAT. HIST. VOL. I. 



hat it contains incongruous associations, and refer to 

 he order Urticece as a proof. It is true that in this 

 order we find the bread-fruit, nettle, mulberry, fig, 

 lop, &c., plants certainly very different in external 

 "orm and manner of growth ; but they have, besides 

 heir similar mode of flowering, some strong charac- 

 eristics of affinity ; for instance, the tough fibrous 

 substances found in the nettle, hemp, hop, and 

 others. 



That the Jussieuan system is not yet perfect is 

 ;rue, but it is not incapable of improvement. Were 

 t, as has been already observed, a little more abridged 

 m its orders and in its vast number of genera by 

 disregarding minor differences of form or position, it 

 would be much more inviting as a study. In some of 

 the natural families there may be groups which, 

 ompared with each other, are obviously distinct, so 

 much so indeed as to have induced some very able 

 practical botanists to separate them entirely from 

 their congeners. Such intermeddling may be scien- 

 tifically justifiable, but such diffusion of the system is 

 always to be regretted, and should never be had 

 recourse to if it can be possibly avoided. Errors or 

 misconceptions of former authors certainly require 

 correction, but old established genera should be cau- 

 tiously dealt with. 



In fine, in this improving age we have every reason 

 to believe that no obstruction to the acquirement of 

 pure botanical science will long remain in the way to 

 impede the progress of the careful student. Every 

 approach will be rendered open and every path made 

 easy and inviting by those masters who are now so 

 deservedly at the head of the science. It may be 

 added that those who have no intention of aspiring to 

 be scientific botanists may yet devote their leisure hours 

 to a kind of botanising with great advantage and 

 pleasure to themselves, if they have ever so small a 

 piece of ground ; or if wanting that, they may for 

 amusement form a herbarium requiring only a few 

 sheets of brown paper. By filling this receptacle 

 with the commonest flowers they may gain a very clear 

 insight into systematic botany by merely putting 

 together every flower they meet with (whether they 

 know the names or not,) according to its general cha- 

 racter. For instance, collect all the bell-shaped flowers 

 {campanula) and place them together ; do the same 

 with the funnel-shaped (bindweed), the masked (snap- 

 dragon), the lipped (dead nettle), the cross-shaped 

 (charlock), the rose-shaped (poppy), the lily-like 

 (daffodil), the butterfly-shaped (broom), the com- 

 pound (daisy), and so forth. Even such an attempt 

 as this would be a pleasing and rational employment ; 

 a valuable first step to a better and more refined 

 knowledge of plants ; and which might be exercised 

 in every walk into the garden, or in every ramble in 

 the fields. 



In entering on this part of the subject it occurs to us 

 as unnecessary to notice any scheme previous to that 

 of Tournefort, because, although his system was not the 

 very first, it was the first in respect of its acceptation 

 with coteraporary botanists and kept its hold of public 

 estimation till it was superseded by the new system 

 of Linnaeus. Tournefort founded his system on the 

 absence or presence, the figure, situation, and propor- 

 tion of the corolla. This part of the flower is always, 

 when present, the most conspicuous and imposing ; 

 and attracted the notice of the earlier botanists (as it 

 does that of children now) more than it really de- 

 served ; because in fact no part of the flower is more 

 Y Y 



