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PREFACE. 



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and to afford the means of arranging plants wliere 



tlicy may be found with the greatest degree of 



facility: and it may, therefore be contended that 



whatever it attains beyond this is so much more 



than it promises. .Natural orders, on the other 



hand, depend on the more obvious and general 

 habits, characters, and relations of plants ; they 



appear indicated by Nature herself, and in some 

 instances are peculiarly evident and perfect, as in 

 the grasses, the palms, and the ferns, compound 

 llowerSj umbelliferous and cruciform plants, &c. &c. 



Natural arrangement lias been long the favou- 

 rite of botanists of the French school 5 but has 

 recently been cultivated with great success in 

 Britain. Although, therefore, for the purposes 

 already stated, the artificial system is pre- 

 eminently useful, natural affinities must be 

 studied by all who wish to become philosophically 

 acquainted with botanical science. The many 

 points of connexion and distinction between the 

 orders cannot be well understood, without greqtly 

 facilitating our discrimination of plants j and not 

 unfrequently, in the investigation of unknown 

 plants, a knowledge of such circumstances will 

 at once direct us into the right tract. 



The specific character has generally beei^made ^ 



to rest on the authority of some standard author j 



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