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INTRODUCTION. 



CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION 



OF 



PLANTS. 



PLANTS are so numerous and diversified that it is impossible 

 to acquire any extensive knowledge of them, or even to retain 

 their names, without the aid of arrangement or classification. 

 Plants may be arranged in two ways. Every one on looking 

 around him in the vegetable world, must perceive that certain 

 plants have so great a resemblance to each other, that they 

 naturally form themselves in the mind into groups. Thus the 

 grasses form a natural family, the leguminous plants another, 

 and so forth. Were the natural affinities of all plants as 

 readily perceived, it would be easy to distribute them into 

 classes ; but this is not the case. For this reason, the Natural 

 arrangement has been substituted by another, called the Arti- 

 ficial, which, although it does not proceed upon the principle 

 or natural affinities, yet frequently places together plants which 

 resemble each other in their structure and appearance. The 

 artificial arrangement usually adopted by botanists is that of 

 Linnaeus. 



All the individuals which bear a particular and intimate re- 

 semblance to each other, constitute a species, whether among 

 plants or among animals. Thus, as the latter are generally 

 better known, all the Foxes in the world, of that kind which 

 Englishmen are notorious for chasing with hounds, constitute 

 the species Fox, or Common Fox. All the species which bear 

 a certain more general resemblance to each other constitute a 

 genus. Thus the Fox species, the Jackal species, the "Wolf 

 species, and the Domestic Dog species, with several others, 

 constitute the genus Dog, All the genera which bear a certain 

 more general resemblance to each other, constitute an order. 



