DESCRIPTIVE BOTAXV. 157 



particles msigniter, maxime and such like, are replaced by 

 superlatives. Subhide, raro, noimunquam, and such like, 

 are better expressed by the syllable sub, prefixed to the ad- 

 jective. It is of importance to brevity, that a property which 

 belongs to several organs should not be repeated with each 

 of them, but put at the end after the organs have been con- 

 nected by the enclitical conjunction que, (pcduncuUs pctiO" 

 Usque aculeatis.) 



But the richer in species any genus is, the more necessary 

 is a circumstantial character. 



242. 

 The order in which the elements of the specific character 

 follow one another is, that the properties which belong to 

 most of the species should be placed first, or that certain lead- 

 ing parts should be selected, in which the differences lie. 

 These, in the case of Roses, are the ovaria ; and, in the case 

 of Pinks, the lobes of the calyx. 



IV. Descriptions of Plants. 



243. 



Good and complete descriptions of plants (adumbratianes) 

 may be compared to excellent pictures, and in one respect 

 they are even preferable to them, namely, in that, at less ex- 

 pence, they exhibit all the relations of parts as correctly to 

 the imagination, as pictures present objects to the external 

 sense. Hence he who reads with attention the description of 

 a plant which is utterly unknown, can represent to himself its 

 image so perfectly, that when he happens to see the plant, he 

 instantly recognises it. For this high value, descriptions are 

 indebted to an observance of certain fixed rules, which we are 

 now to state more particularly. 



244. 

 A good description must, in the first place, be complete, 

 that is to say, it must so compreliend the whole of the essen- 



