374 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



can be an absolute rule for classification ; and hence 

 he blames the Jussieuian method, as giving this 

 inadmissible authority to the cotyledons. Roscoe 12 

 further urges that some plants, as Orchis morio, 

 and Limodorum verecundum, have no visible coty- 

 ledons. Yet De CandoJle, who laboured along with 

 Lamarck, in the new edition of the Flore Franpaise, 

 has, as we have already intimated, been led, by the 

 most careful application of the wisest principles, to 

 a system of natural orders, of which Jussieu's may 

 be looked upon as the basis ; and we shall find the 

 greatest botanists, up to the most recent period, 

 recognizing, and employing themselves in improv- 

 ing, Jussieu's natural families ; so that in the pro- 

 gress of this part of our knowledge, vague and per- 

 plexing as it is, we have no exception to our general 

 aphorism, that no real acquisition in science is ever 

 discarded. 



The reception of the system of Jussieu in this 

 country was not so ready and cordial as of that of 

 Linnaeus. As we have already noticed, the two 

 systems were looked upon as rivals. Thus Roscoe, 

 in 1810 13 , endeavoured to show that Jussieu's sys- 

 tem was not more natural than the Linnsean, and 

 was inferior as an artificial system : but he argues 

 his points as if Jussieu's characters were the grounds 

 of his distribution ; which, as we have said, is to 

 mistake the construction of a natural system. In 



12 Roscoe, Linn. 7V. vol xi. Cuscuta also has no cotyledons. 



13 Linn. 7V. vol. xi. p. 50. 



