CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS. 215 
rs for careful research, directed by a vast and comprehensive 
sp of his subject. In the classifications of De Candolle, End- 
+ Ticher, and of M. Brongniart, the distribution of plants into 
families is founded, like that of Ray and Jussieu, on the consider- 
: ation of the cotyledons ; of the petalous, monopetalous, and apetalous 
corolla; finally, upon the mode of insertion of the stamens. Names 
have changed ; things remain the same ; and if in their details the 
ries of families present certain differences, it only arises from 
he fact that a linear series is incompatible with the natural 
stem, and that the connection of the intermediate groups may 
expressed in various ways without affecting the general princi- 
es of the system. “The formation of natural orders by De 
says Ad. Brongniart, “is even now a model which 
irects botanists in their studies to the affinity which connects the 
various forms of vegetation. Many of these orders have doubtless 
been subjected to important modifications, both as extending and 
imiting them; the numbers have been more than doubled; but. 
Since the publication of the ‘Genera Plantarum,’ many points in 
ihe organisation of plants which were either scarcely touched pan 
were altogether unsuspected, have now been considered, and 
is found that they do not destroy, but confirm and perfect 
uhe work of Jussieu. One is even astonished to find that the 
pumerous discoveries in the anatomy and organigraphy of plants 
sce the beginning of the century have not introduced greater 
modifications into the constitution of the natural groups admitted 
by the author of the ‘Genera Plantarum.’ It is here that we 
ecognise the sagacity of the savant who established them, and the 
soundness of the principle which guided him.” 
The natural classification of plants, their distribution into 
families, well defined, and founded upon affinities, have been per- 
fected and placed upon a basis more and more certain in our own 
4ays. Botanists have set themselves the task of unravelling and 
ablishing the characters which dominate, and those which are 
subordinate, in each family; great numbers have spread them- 
ves over the globe, exploring the most distant regions, interro- 
ing the solitudes of forests and plains, which no.European had 
0 visited, and aave studied in their native wilds many exotic 
the number of epohinn now known is increased more than sixfold. _ 
