182 SYSTEMATIC ARRANGEMENT OF PLANTS. 



to use Mr. Lindley's own words, " is a frightful poi- 

 son " (p. 1083) ? Were I the proprietor of this work, 

 I would not hesitate an instant to break up the stereo- 

 type plates, in order to expunge such glaring contra- 

 dictions and highly dangerous errors. In his own work 

 on the " Natural System," Mr. Lindley alludes to the 

 discrepancy in these words : 



" The fig, the bread-fruit tree, the jack, and the 

 mulberry, are all found here, and are a curious instance 

 of wholesome or harmless plants in an order which 

 contains the most deadly poison in the world, the 

 Upas of Java j the juice, however, of even those which 

 have wholesome fruit, is acrid and suspicious, and in 

 a species of fig, Ficus toxicaria, is absolutely venom- 

 ous 1 /' Now had the author not been blindly preju- 

 diced in favour of the system, he must have seen, 

 that instead of this being a " curious instance" author- 

 ising a theoretical suspicion of the mild fig and 

 nutritious bread-fruit, it is fatal to the whole doctrine 

 of safely inferring medicinal properties. Mr. Lindley 

 complains bitterly in his preface, that " the Natural 

 System of Botany 5 ' " has to contend with a great deal 

 of deeply-rooted prejudice;" but the wonder ought 

 rather to be, that such doctrines as those under notice 

 ever found any person so fool-hardy as to promulgate 

 and defend them. 



In the division just alluded to, which is the fifteenth 

 class of our ALPHABET, in the second order, among 

 those especially called the true nettles (as if there 



0) P. 95, latrod. Nat. System of Botany. 



