8 



INTRODUCTION. 



a scientific character, and in this country, John Eay 

 (1703) may he considered the leader. He was followed 

 by Carol Linnaeus, a Swedish professor of botany, who 

 in 1731 published his celebrated sexual system of plants, 

 and as his method was simple and easy it soon became 

 popular and fashionable, doing much for the advance- 

 ment of botanical science. Although in some degree 

 now superseded by what is called the Jussieuan or 

 natural system,* yet the latter cannot be well under- 

 stood, or botany learned even by the most scientific, 

 without well studying the elements on which the 

 Linnaean system is founded. 



According to Linnaeus, all plants are capable of being 

 arranged under twenty-four classes. He was also famed 

 for being the inventor of the trivial or specific name. 

 Before his time names of plants contained their descrip- 

 tions, often consisting of many words ; this Linnaeus 

 simplified by giving every plant a name equivalent to the 

 Christian name and surname in a family — the Christian 

 name answering for the species, and the surname for the 

 genus, but reversed in. botany; for example, red gera- 

 nium is Geranium ruhrum. This method is now adopted 

 by all scientific botanists. During the last sixty years 

 all the principal works on scientific botany have been 

 based on the natural system ; and to understand the 

 principles on which it is founded, a knowledge of names, 

 structures, forms, and functions of the different organs 

 of plants is requisite. 



I may here notice the origin and important influence 

 which the successive introduction and cultivation of 

 foreign plants known as exotics, has exercised in pro- 



See Classification. 



