358 UNN^US AND THE JUSSIEUS 



hair of mammals, the feathers of birds) are distinctivi 

 of classes ; that " no character must be supposed to be 

 natural until it is proved to be so " ; ^ that " the less 

 any part of the organisation is concerned with special 

 habits the more important it becomes for classification." ^ 



Sachs ^ considers that the chief merit of A. L. de 

 Jussieu consists in this, that he first assigned characters 

 to the families, as Caspar Bauhin had done for the 

 species, and Tournefort for the genera. 



The Genera Plantarum was little read for many 

 years, and no systematic work or elementary treatise 

 adopted the new method until De Candolle introduced 

 it into his text-books. The arrangement of flowering 

 plants proposed by Jussieu and De Candolle still 

 prevails in English-speaking countries. 



The Genera Plantarum of A. L. de Jussieu marks 

 the fullest development which the natural system of 

 flowering plants attained during the period covered by 

 this volume. We have seen the humble beginnings of 

 that natural system in the herbals of Brunfels, Bock and 

 Fuchs (or still earlier in the Greek botanists), and its 

 partial efiacement by the Sexual System of Linnaeus ; 

 the hidden germ, which had been kept alive by the 

 Fragmenta of Linnaeus himself and the experimental 

 arrangement of Bernard de Jussieu at Versailles, now 

 starts into vigorous growth once more. 



In spite of the inevitable difficulties which arise from 

 vast gaps in the historical succession of the types, 

 botanists are steadily labouring at the improvement of 

 system without misgiving. The phylogenetic discoveries 

 of the last half-century have convinced them that the 

 method of the Jussieus is both valid and indispensable. 



^ Waterhouse, quoted in the Origin of Species. 



' Origin of Species, chap. xiii. 



^ Hist, of Botany, English trans, , p. 1 16. 



