126 THE ROYAL FAMILIES 
political science, it is enough to observe, that these “royal 
families” have always attained their eminence, no doubt, 
through some high qualification of wisdom, courage, en- 
terprise, or wealth. Some fortunate exhibition of a strong 
trait has compelled an acknowledgment of prerogative 
from the popular mass, and this advantage the recipients 
have been extremely careful to maintain. 
On looking over the families of plants, we find royal 
ones there also. There are four relationships of this kind 
that tower above all the host that surround them. 
“ He above the rest, 
In shape and gesture proudly eminent 
like a tower.” 
Perforce, we must call them royal. The chief of the 
four is the family known as the Composites, or, as we pre- 
fer to call them, the Asterids. 
The eminence of this vast group was very early recog- 
nized. The sagacious Ray had, by the year 1700, come 
to see its greatness so clearly, that, instead of a mere fam- 
ily, or order, he was willing to call it one of the primary 
divisions of the great Vegetable Kingdom. No other re- 
lationship unites such an enormous number of plants. 
Lindley, in 1853, reckoned the distinet species at nine 
thousand, and these as making one thousand and five sec- 
ondary sets or genera. His estimate for the total of all 
known plants of every sort, is ninety-two thousand, nine 
hundred and thirty, so that, practically, we shall find just 
about one of these plants in every ten we may gather, 
taking the world over. There is no other case that af- 
rds any comparison with this. These plants are met 
w all over the globe, excluded neither from the tropics 
nor the arctic valleys, and taking rank and position, it 
seems, very much as suits them, irrespective of latitude. 
Pa Presl er sec pt, 
