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P. E M A R K S 



O N 



THE 



VEGE- 



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r A B L E 

 KINGDOM 



exuberance of the foil in fome of the tropical ifles, is perhaps one 

 of the reafons why fuch a Pxumber of their plants belong to the 

 Linnsean claffes of monoecia, dioecia, and polygamia, and it is re- 

 markable that plants which botaniils have obferved to be herma- 



male and fern 



flowers @n 



phrodites in America, here bear their 

 two diftindl ihrubs, and this may, confirm the opinion, that moft 

 dioicous plants, are fomewhere or other alfo found in the hermar 

 phrodite flate ; which, if it were general, would entirely fet afide 

 that clafs : it has likewife often been thought that it w 3uld be an 

 improvement to the fexual fyilem, if the claffes of monoecia arid 

 polygamia were expunged, and their genera placed according to the 

 number of flamina ; but, if we confider how many of them would 



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fall to the ihare of fuch claffes as are already numerous, it mufl be 

 obvious, that this would only render the fcience more intricate. 



The number of five. 



according to th 



great LinnaL'Us's obfervatioiii 



is the mofl frequent in nature, (Phil. Bot. 60). Hence the clafs 

 of pentandria is fo crowded with genera; and hence alfo our acquis 

 fitions chiefly belong to it. It was with a kind of regret, that we 

 fawfo many plants accumulating to the increafe of that clafs, which 

 was already too extenfive ; \ 



s this circumflance feemed to haften the 



overthrow of the fexual fyflem, it contributed to make us extremely 



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cautious in. creating new genera. Thofe claffes, which in Europe are 



the 



