Q76 CHARACTERS 



Linnaeus first insisted on generic characters being 

 exclusively taken from the seven parts of fructification, 

 and he demonstrated these to be sufficient for all the 

 plants that can be discovered. He also laid it down 

 as a maxim, that all genera are as much founded in 

 nature as the species which compose them ; and hence 

 follows one of the most just and valuable of all his 

 principles, that a genus should furnish a character, 

 not a character J[orm a genus ; or, in other words, 

 that a certain coincidence of structure, habit, and per- - 

 haps qualities, among a number of plants, should 

 strike the judgement of a botanist, before he fixes on" 

 one or more technical characters, by which to stamp 

 and define such plants as one natural genus. Thus 

 the Hemerocaltis c&rulea, Andr. Repos. t. 6, and 

 alba, t. 194, though hitherto referred by all botanists 

 to that genus, are so very different from the other 

 species in habit, that a discriminative character might 

 with confidence be expected in some part or other of 

 their fructification, and such a character is accordingly 

 found in the winged seeds. Yet in the natural genera 

 of Arenaria and Sfiergula, winged or bordered seeds 

 are so far from indicating a distinct genus, that it is 

 doubtful whether they are sufficient to constitute even 

 a specific character. See Engl. Bot. t. 958, 1535 

 and 1536. So Blandfordia, Exot. Bot. t. 4, is -well 

 distinguished from Aletris, with which some botanists 

 have confounded it, by its hairy seeds ; but the same 

 circumstance will not justify us in separating a few 



