NATURAL SYSTEM OF PLANTS. 183 



NATURAL SYSTEM OF PLANTS. 



The Natural System of Plants differs from the artificial system now detailed ; for 

 it takes into account the whole organization of the plant, with its habits and properties, 

 and is not restricted to one or two particular features. The contrast of the two plans of 

 classification is thus coaeisely stated by the author of the " Vegetable Kingdom :" " The 

 natural system of Botany being founded on these principles, that all points of resem- 

 blance, between the various parts, properties, and qualities of plants, shall be taken into 

 consideration ; that thence an arrangement shall be deduced in which plants must be 

 placed next each other, which have tne greatest degree of similarity in those respects ; 

 and that, consequently, the quality of an imperfectly-known plant may be judged of 

 by that of another which is well known. It must be obvious that such a method 

 possesses great superiority over artificial systems, like that of Linnaeus', in which there 

 is no combination of ideas, but which are mere collections of isolated facts, having no 

 distinct relation to each other. The advantages of the natural system, in applying 

 botany to useful purposes, are immense, especially to medical men, who depend so much 

 upon the vegetable kingdom for their remedial agents. A knowledge of the properties 

 of one plant enables the practitioner to judge scientifically of the qualities of other 

 plants naturally allied to it ; and therefore the physician, acquainted with the natural 

 system of botany, may direct his inquiries when on foreign stations, not empirically, 

 but upon fixed principles, into the qualities of the medicinal plants which have been 

 provided in every region for the alleviation of the maladies peculiar to it. He is thus 

 enabled to read the hidden characters with which nature has labelled all the hosts of 

 species that spring from her teeming bosom." "We do not need therefore to hesitate 

 when we confidently recommend this plan of classification in preference to the simple 

 one already given. 



As the component parts of a plant are very various, and their relative importance is 

 somewhat a matter of opinion, and, moreover, as plants resemble and differ from each 

 other in so many and minute particulars, it is no matter for wonder that various natural 

 systems have been devised. Indeed it is not possible for any ten of the most learned men 

 existing to prepare each an original scheme, independent of each other, without pro- 

 ducing ten systems instead of one system of classification. There have been already about 

 thirty distinct systems (many of which, however, were simply modifications of one or 

 more preceding) ; and it is probable that the best one, at the present moment, is so imper- 

 fect that it must be amended yearly. The great Linnaeus himself gave the outline of a 

 natural system, in which he arranged all the then known plants under sixty-eight 

 heads ; but he attached little importance to it. Since his day several others have 

 appeared, which were original, and which have had great influence in the world. The 

 first is that of Adrien de Jussieu, who, in 1789, published an admirable system on the 

 outlines given by our great countryman Kay, in 1703 ; and to this day De Jussieu's 

 system is held ia high estimation. The next great writer on classification \*as A. P. 

 de Candolle, and he compiled one hundred and sixty-one natural orders out of the 

 three great divisions of plants, Dicotyledons, Monocotyledons, and Acotyledons, before 

 described. These two systems have been the foundation of all those of more modern 



