BRITISH HER BAA, 
‘ 
MPH OLEHEGESO SSPE SEL ELE CERES ELR SERS 
CPLA S SO SOx 
Plants whofe flower is formed of @ fingle petal, divided into five parts at 
the edge; whofe feeds ftand naked, and are Jour in number after every 
flower ; and whofe leaves are placed alternately or irregularly, not in 
pairs, upon the fralks. 
HIS is a clafs as naturally and as obvioufly diftinguithed from all others, as any of the pre. 
i ceding. The plants which compofe it wear a plain and perfect refemblance of one another, 
and are unlike all others. This equally joins them under one head, and feparates all the 
reft from them. Their place, in a natural arrangement of the genera, is marked by Nature; for 
they follow thofe which have four feeds, in the fame manner; but have their leaves in pairs, and have 
labiated flowers. Their characters, which feparate them from thefe, are incommunicable; while 
what they have in common with them is alfo throughout ‘the whole feries unvaried. 
So regular, fo accurate is Nature in her diftin@tions. Mr. Ray, who fludied her in her own 
courfe, perceived it. He took in the difpofition. of the leaves, as wellias the ftructure of the flowers, 
into his claffical charaéters; and by that practice he, kept. thefe plants. together, which others have 
{cattered over their works, re 
Linneus limits the claffical charaéters of plants to the confideration of the more minute parts of 
their flowers: therefore he muft fail in cafes where the general external fathion. of the flower makes 
the diftinGtion, much more where Nature has placed the great mark of diftinction in the fituation 
and difpofition of the leaves; which he never admits as a claffical, nor indeed as‘a generical diftin@ion, 
but only as a part of the defcription of the fpecies. 
Ray calls thefe the afperifoliate plants, guided by the roughnefs of the leaves of many ofithem: but 
that is an ill-chofen term. The name of a clafs muft.be equally applicable to every plant belonging 
to it; and how does this agree with hounds-tongue ? 
Borage and buglofs have rough leaves ; but there are others properly of this clafs, which have 
them altogether {mooth. ; 
Nature has connected thefe plants by a fimilarity, even in, their {malleft parts ; and Linnzus, 
who does not allow them to conftitute a difting; clafs, is obliged: by his method, which: regards 
only the threads in the flower, to keep moft of, them together. 
They make a part of his fifth clafs, the pentandria : but fome of them are feparated by his attach- 
ment to thefe leffer parts ; and with the reft he has mixed in the fame clafs plants fo unlike in na- 
ture, that boys muft laugh to fee them brought together, The coffee tree and the boney/uckle, night- 
heade and buckthorn, join with borrage and buglofs to make the clafs of the <pentandrias 
SERIES 
