10 FLORA INDTCA. 



fear to be censured for stating truisms, did not the annals of 

 natural science present too many instances of the reckless- 

 ness with which genera, orders, and even so-called natural 

 systems, have been instituted by tyros without the smallest 

 practical acquaintance with structure and affinities. We do 

 not refer merely to the vagaries of a Rafinesque, a Bowditch, 

 or a Blanco, though a botanist so eminent as Endlicher has 

 thought it necessary to encumber his pages with characters of 

 genera which must remain for ever enigmatical, unless some 

 happy chance should make us acquainted with the specimens 

 of the authors; we have in view more well-meaning persons, 

 who have the progress of science at heart, but who, by defec- 

 tive definitions and erroneous classification, crowd our books 

 with imperfectly defined genera and with groups and subdi- 

 visions of no practical value. A knowledge of the relative 

 importance of characters can only be acquired by long study ; 

 and without a due appreciation of their value, no natural group 

 can be defined. Hence many of the new genera which are 

 daily added to our lists rest upon trivial characters, and have 

 no equahty with those already in existence. A proneness to 

 imitation leads to a gradual increase in their numbers, with- 

 out a corresponding increase of sectional groups. Indeed, 

 even when the sectional groups are well defined, and the ge- 

 nera in themselves natural, a too great increase in the number 

 of genera is detrimental, by keeping out of view those higher 

 divisions which are of greater importance. The modern system 

 of elevating every minor group, however trifling the characters 

 by which it is distinguished, to the rank of a genus, evinces, 

 we think, a ti ant of appreciation of the true value of classifica- 

 tion. The genus is the group which, in consequence of our sys- 

 tem of nomenclature, is kept most prominently before the mind, 

 and which has therefore most importance attached to it*. 



* We may make our meaning more clear by a few examples. The genus 

 Mais is surely more natm-al than the subgenera Fogonotrophe, CoiielUa, Uro- 

 stigma, into which it has been subdivided. So with the genera Anemone, Se- 

 dyotis, EHca, Andromeda, and others which have been spUt into many by 

 modern botanists. Mr. Brown has, in all his works, laboured to keep this 



