OF PLANTS. 103 



circles of leaves. These compound flowers, (as Linnaeus 



called them,) characterize the Grasses in the first series, or 



Monocotyledons; in the second, or Dicotyledons, that family 



to which the Daisy, Dandelion, Thistle, Artichoke, and 



such plants belong, and which, on account of this peculiarity, 



is called the compound-blossomed family, or Composite 



That which the maidens call the flower of corn, when 



they entwine it in their garlands, is, in fact, a whole company 



of small but perfect flowers. If we would recognize a 



series, in the progress from the simplest to the most 



complex, we must evidently regard the Grasses and 



Composites as holding the highest station in existing 



vegetation. Remarkably enough, also, precisely these 



two families, by their number of species and individuals, 



constitute the most peculiar characteristic components of 



the existing Flora, for, in the collective number of about 



300 families of plants, the Grasses alone include one 



twentieth, the Composite a tenth, therefore both together 



almost one seventh of the whole number of species 



known. 



I must be content that I have in the preceding sketch 

 brought forward the principal points which, in the present 

 condition of our science, constitute the most important 

 features of morphological inquiry. That countless questions 

 and considerations crowd upon us in the details, must 

 be evident to any one who reflects. To those who have 

 never been accustomed to look through the modes of 

 external appearance into the essential internal connection of 

 the variations of form, it will indeed seem paradoxical, 

 to say that the globular, furrowed, fleshy Cactus, with 

 its splendid blossom, is properly nothing but a tropical 

 Gooseberry-bush; that the Palm-like stem of the Drac&nas, 

 often thirty feet high, with mighty bunches of great Lily- 



