Antonie Lament de Jussieu. 297 



per alliances he has been led to form. It would be unjust, at the 

 same time, not to acknowledge that there is to be found, in many 

 parts of his work, the indication of affinities previously overlooked* 

 and which he very happily perceived. 



While Adanson was engaged in these complicated labours to ar- 

 rive at the natural method, Bernard de Jussieu, examining nature 

 with a sagacity which may be judged of from the few memoirs he 

 has published, established the principles of this method, not in a 

 book, but by nature itself, namely, in a series of plants in the garden 

 of Trianon, or in a still more perspicuous manner, in the catalogues 

 used in the formation of that garden ; for the manuscript lists he 

 has left, the most complete of which has been published at the head 

 of the Genera of Antoine Laurent de Jussieu, indicate the position 

 of many genera, which at that period were not cultivated in gar- 

 dens. 



It is sufficient to compare this simple list with the attempts at a 

 natural method by Linne and Adanson, to see how much it is supe- 

 rior to both, and what a profound knowledge and sagacity it im- 

 plies in this learned botanist, whom Linne was pleased to designate 

 as one of the masters of the science. As a proof of this, upwards 

 of two-thirds of the groups established by Bernard de Jussieu have 

 remained untouched, notwithstanding the progress of botany, or 

 have only been subdivided, without these subdivisions being dis- 

 joined from each other. The examination of the genera united in 

 each of these families, as well as the series which he has establish- 

 ed, shows that Bernard de Jussieu had assumed as a character of 

 the first order, presenting no real exception, the structure of the 

 embryos, acotyledon, monocotyledon and dicotyledon ; for it is evi- 

 dent that the few instances where he has included in the same fa- 

 mily, plants differing in this particular, result from the still imper- 

 fect knowledge which we possess of the nature and structure of 

 fruits, 



It may be seen, in like manner, that he had appreciated the im- 

 portance of the characters furnished by the relative insertion of the 

 diff'erent parts of the flower, and that he had even made this the 

 subject of a careful examination, for he has very rarely united in 

 the samie family plants presenting any notable differences in this 

 respect ; and the order of these families, as well among the mono- 

 cotyledones as among the dicotyledones, is founded on the insertion 

 of the stamina, or of the corolla, on the pistil, the calyx, or the re- 

 ceptacle. 



Although Bernard de Jussieu, therefore, has not made us ac- 



