BRITISH HERBAL. 
RABAT ee ee ee Doee eeesDaa aD e ae De a SeDeaeDcBe Ra eee ae DSH Dee CB aR cPe 
‘ 
GLA’ Ss SAL 
Plants whofe flower is compofed of severat PETALS, with NUMEROUS THREADS 
in the centre, and whofe feeds are contained in sivERAL PODS. 
which it confifts have been feparated from one another, and joined with fuch as are unlike 
them, bythe fafhionable form of this fcience: Mr. Ray, who followed nature carefully, has 
kept thefe together, as the preceding. He calls them berbe multifilique, five corniculate. 
"To like the former, is a clafs perfectly diftinguifhed by nature; although the plants of 
The plants of this clafs are fewer than in many othetss and we fee how regularly, naturally, 
and obvionfly they are connected together ; yet Linnzeus has difperfed thern over all his works. We 
join them, becaufe feveral feparate feed-vefiels follow every flower. This character they all have, and 
this no other have ; it is therefore a very plain and perfect mark for their diftinction + that author fepa- 
rates them, becaufe though all have feveral threads in the centre; yet fome havea greater, fome a 
fmaller number. Becaufe' hellebore has twenty or more of thefe threads, he places that, and, for 
the fame reafon, columbine and larkfpur, among his polyandria polygynia, joining them with the 
plants of our laft clafs. Becaufe in the greater houfeleek thefe threads are twelve, and in the leffer fpe- 
cies ten, thofe plants are feparated from the preceding, and from one another, and placed in two dif- 
tinét clafles; the former among his dodecandria, and the other among his decandria. The flowering 
rufh, for bearing but nine threads in every flower, is fent into a clafs different from all the others, 
among his exweandria : and the periwinkle, having but five threads in each flower, is joined with ivy, 
currants, and the vine, whofe fruits are berries, under the claf$ of pentandria. 
Thus we fee the plants of which this clafs is compofed, and: which are fo perfectly allied to 
one another, diftributed by this author throughout every part of his fyftem'; fcarce any two of them 
are to be found together. 
The queftion:here is, whether a number of plants are to be treated of together, becaufe they all have 
their feeds placed in feveral capfules after every flower, a character no others enjoy in common with 
them; or whether they are to be feparated into different claffés, becaufe one has ten, and another has 
but nine:threads in the centre? Such is the fyftem of Linnaeus. Novelty made it pleafe, and its 
“obfcurity rendered it admired; but it cannot be lafting. 
Tournefort judged better in this cafe: erroneous as he has been with refpeé&t to the plants of the 
preceding clafs, he determined rightly of thefe. ‘The fingular character of feveral feparate capfules 
after every flower, could not efcape him; though eamens: who knew, would not obferve it. 
Tournefort keeps them together, as Mr. Ray has done, under that character. The inftances we have 
given of Linnzus’s unnaturally feparating thefe plants from one another, and unnaturally joining 
them with others, are from the Englifh wild kinds. We fhall thew greater force put upon nature, 
when we come to foreign genera; if there can be greater than joining the periwinkle and the vine, one 
having for its fruit a berry, the other feveral feparate dry pods; becaufe in each the flower has five 
threads i in the centre, 
5 
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