PART THIRD. 



SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 



CHAPTER I. 



GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF CLASSIFICATION. 



492. Systematic Botany relates to the arrangement of Plants 

 into Groups and Families according to their characters, for the 

 purpose of facilitating the study of their names, affinities, habits, 

 history, properties, and. uses. In this department the principles 

 of Organic and Physiological Botany are applied and brought 

 into practical use. 



493. But there is another and higher import in the study of 

 Systematic Botany. It shows us Plants as related to each other 

 and. constituting one magnificent system. It reveals the Al- 

 mighty Creator at once employed in the minutest details and 

 upon the boundless whole ; equally attentive to the perfection 

 of the individual in itself, and to the completeness of the Grand 

 System of which it forms a necessary part. 



494. The necessity for such an arrangement of the Species will appear when we con- 

 eider their immense numbers. They meet us in ever-varying forms at every step, cloth- 

 ing the hills, mountains, valleys, and plains. They spring up in hedges and by the way- 

 side. They border the streams and lakes, and sprinkle over their surface. They stand 

 assembled in forests, and cover with verdure even the depths of the Ocean. Not less than 

 100,000 kinds are already distinguished, and the catalogue is still increasing. 



403 Into this vast kingdom of Nature the student is introduced, and proposes to ac- 

 quaint himself with each and every object. How shall he begin? Evidently he must 

 begin with the individual a single individual plant. But (thanks to Him who created 

 both the plant and the mind the object and the subject), we are not left to continue the 

 study in a method so endless and so hopeless. As if in special regard to the measure of 

 the human intellect and the means of its culture, the Great Author of Nature ha? grouped 

 these myriads of individuals into 



