or points. For this purpose, any classification, however arbitrary, 
that led easily to the discovery of the name, was sufficient. But as 
observed by Professor Daubeny, in his Inaugural Lecture, “The 
time seems at length arrived, when a more philosophical arrangement 
of the multitudinous objects which present themselves to us in our sur- 
vey of the vegetable kingdom, seems feasible—when, instead of resting 
satisfied with the mode of classification established by Linneus, in 
which the individuals grouped together possess no necessary resem- 
blance in structure, our peers object ages aie to peng enter ao 
species, which offer th 
other, in the hopes, hereafter, of pe ae a system, ali the very 
place which the plant occupies in it, shall, in a manner, announce 
its most prominent characters, the virtues which it may possess, and its 
affinities with,others.” This is what is contemplated by the Natural 
Method, in which plants are associated in groups, or tribes; and it is 
the more worthy of adoption, that it is the only one, which gives ho- 
tany a claim to the title of a Science—the only one by which the prin. 
ciples of induction can be applied to the study of plants. A natural 
tribe is neither more nor less than the observed steady association of 
certain properties, structures, and analogies, in several species and 
genera. A natural tribe, therefore, may be supposed to e a circle, (a 
similitude which has been adopted by Mr. Loudon, in his Iilustra~ 
tions of Landscape Gardening) all the plants found within the cir- 
cumference of which present a certain similarity of external charac- 
ters, which indicates the existence of a certain similarity of chemical 
principles, and under parallel circumstances, of medicinal power; so 
that when acquainted with the structure and properties of any one 
plant of a tribe, an index is possessed to all the rest. A striking con- 
firmation of this is afforded by the fact, that nations widely apart, and 
having no scientific intercourse, will be found to employ some species 
of the same tribe for similar purposes. Nothing can illustrate this 
better than the tribe ofthe Cinchonacex. Not only do the inhabitants 
of Peru, employ for the cure of fever, the species of Cinchona, growing 
among them, those species universally known as Peravian Bark, but 
the Brazilians employ with a similar intention, three species of this 
tribe, native of Brazil; while in French Guiana, the Coutarea speciosa, 
in Carolina, the Pinckneya pubens, and in the West Indian Is- 
lands, various species of Exostemma, yield febrifuge barks. In Africa, 
the bark of species of this tribe, furnish excellent fever medicines ; 
