Neilgherry Plants. 147 



into Fungi or Mushrooms : Protophyta or sea-weeds and lichens : 

 and Acrobryous or Psendocotyledonous plants including ferns, moss- 

 es, Hepaticse, &c. The progressive blending between these circles, 

 in their own kingdoms, is affinity. The more remote similarities or 

 blending, as it were, of habits and properties often easily traceable 

 between analogous circles of the two kingdoms is, the analogy men- 

 tioned as existing in every perfect circle. 



Thus far the two kingdoms advance side by side and step by step 

 together, presenting analogous groups in each. The Vertebrata re- 

 presented by the Exogens — the Annulosa by the Endogens — the 

 Acreta by the Protophta — the Radiata by the Fungi — and lastly, the 

 Mollusca by the Acrobrya or Psendocotyledonia. 



But when we advance beyond this point, and attempt to compare 

 the Vertebrata and Exogens, we are arrested at the first step. The 

 former is clearly divided by the hand of nature into three self-evident 

 groups ; the typical, Mammals — sub-typical, Birds — and the aberrant, 

 cold-blooded Vertebrata, including Reptiles, Fishes, and Amphibia, 

 each of which form a perfect circle : thus again completing the 

 quinary series of circles. Wherein the exogenous or corresponding 

 circle of plants do we find analogous groups ? I am unable satisfac- 

 torily to answer the question, but still I cannot help thinking, as I 

 shall by and by show, that parallel circles or groups may yet be found, 

 and probably, when once traced, will prove as self-evident, even to 

 the most casual observer, as the animal ones now are. The same re- 

 mark is applicable to the Annulosse and Exogens, where the parallel 

 circles have not, so far as I am aware, been traced in the two king- 

 doms, but probably may readily be so, when the attempt is made by 

 a competent observer who has made himself acquainted with the 

 Zoological system, which, in first principles at least, seems to have 

 gone far ahead of the Botanical. 



Dr. Lindley in his elements of Botany has presented us with 

 sketches of two circular arrangements of plants ; each perhaps supe- 

 rior to those of any of his cotemporaries, but in which, so far as my 

 comparatively limited acquaintance with the subject of circular ar- 

 rangements, and indeed with the relationships of the vegetable king- 

 dom generally, enables me to follow him, he does not appear to have 

 succeeded in bringing out the affinities and analogies of his vegetable 

 circle so clearly as Zoologists have their animal ones. In this opini- 

 on, I may perhaps be greatly in error, and in venturing to express it, 

 may only be exposing my own ignorance of the subject, but still, 



