[ 128 ] 



poffibly they exift but in a fmall number : never- 

 thelefs, they are attempted through the whole 

 fyftem, to fave the trouble of turning over the na- 

 tural characters at large. 



As this volume was intended to contain all the 

 plants hitherto known, confequently xkit natural 

 characters could not be introduced \ but the fie- 

 tltious and ejfential ones are placed, the former at 

 the head of each clafs^ and the latter before each 

 genus. With each generical name the author 

 refers to the number where it is exhibited at 

 large, in the laft edition of the Genera Plant arum^ 

 in 1764, and to the page of the Species Plantarum 

 of 1762, where the fpecies are detailed and the fy- 

 Ttonyms added ; as he gives in this volume only the 

 Ipecific name invented by himfelf. 



Tn forming the laft branch of the fyftem, the 

 Specific names, Linnaeus has done more than all 

 the writers on the fubjed had done before him, 

 and taken the utmoft pains to fix them upon 

 diftinctions as permanent and invariable as pof- 

 fible. This is indeed the ultimate objed of all 

 method and on this plan he has given new fpe^ 

 iific names to all the plants that have come to his 

 knowledge : names, not taken (as had been cuf- 

 tom^ry before) from that of the difcoverer, the 

 likenefs of the plant to other fpecies, place of 

 growth, time of flowering, its fize, the colour of 

 the flower, or of the plant, fmell, tafte, or vir- 

 tues in medicine, or any other fuch vague, in- 

 definite, or mutable circumftance ; but from 

 fome remarkable difference in the root, trunk, 



ftalk^. 



