ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 207 



sion into groups from external aspect or " fades," does not 

 admit of being applied to the whole vegetable kingdom, so 

 also, in such a classification, the grounds on which the 

 division is made are quite different from those on which our 

 systems of natural families and of plants (including the 

 whole of the vegetable kingdom) have been so happily 

 established. Physiognomic classification grounds her divi- 

 sions and the choice of her types on whatever possesses 

 "mass," such as shape, position and arrangement of 

 leaves, their size, and the character and surfaces (shining or 

 dull) of the parenchyma, therefore, on all that are called 

 more especially the " organs of vegetation," i. e. those on 

 which the preservation, the nourishment and development, 

 of the individual depend ; while systematic Botany, on 

 the other hand, grounds the arrangement of natural 

 families on the consideration of the organs of propagation, 

 those on which the continuation or preservation of the 

 species depends. (Kunth, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1847, 

 Th. i. S. 511 ; Schleiden, die Pflanze und ihr Leben, 1848, 

 S. 100). It was already taught in the school of Aristotle 

 (Probl. 20, 7), that the production of seed is the ultimate 

 object of the existence and life of the plant. Since Caspar 

 Pried. Wolf (Theoria Generationis, 5-9), and since our 

 great (German) Poet, the process of development in the 

 organs of fructification has become the morphological 

 foundation of all systematic botany. 



That study, and the study of the physiognomy of plants, I 

 here repeat, proceed from two different points of view : the 

 first from agreement in the inflorescence or in the delicate 



