iv 
INTRODUCTION. 
form, and darkness was upon the face of it. But as the 
system of Touniefort, which appeared about the end of the 
seventeenth century, was considered at the time extremely 
beautiful, and was adopted in France, with the greatest enthu- 
siasm, where he probably has still some disciples, it may not 
be amiss to give a brief outline of it. 
The first division of Tournefort was into herbs and trees, 
and these were again subdivided into those with a corolla, and 
those without. The trees with a corolla were divided into 
monopetalous and polypetalous, and those, regular or irregular. 
Herbs with a corolla had that part either compoui)d, as in the 
thistle, dandelion, &c, or simple ; these last were again sub- 
divided into monopetalous and i)olypetalous, and both sub- 
divisions into regular or irregular. By the final sections or 
classes of this system, herbs with a simple, monopetalous, 
regular corolla, were cither bell-shaped, or funnel-shaped; 
those with irregular corollas were, either anomalous, or 
labiate. Herbs with a simple, polypetalous, regular corolla, 
were cruciform, rosaceous, umbellate, pink-like, or liliaceous; 
those with an irregular one, papilionaceous, or anomalous. 
The further subdivisions of his classes were founded on the 
fruit. 
It would be uncandid not to admit that the foregoing 
sytsem had much of ingenuity in it, but it was soon discovered 
that it could never provide for all the forms of corolla which 
the vegetable kingdom might present, and it soon gave way 
before the more comprehensive sexual system of the great 
Linnaeus. This philosopher having proved that the stamens 
and pistil of a plant were the organs the most essential to its 
being, conceived the idea of making them subservient to a 
general system of classification, by reference to their number, 
situation, and proportion. Having decided upon tbis, he dis- 
tinguished the vegetable as well as the animal kingdom into 
genera, species, and varieties. By species is to be under- 
stood those plants supposed to be established at the creation, 
and which have ever since continued to cover the surface of the 
earth ; founded on the presumption that neither has any spe- 
cies been altogether lost, nor any new one permanently esta- 
blished. A genus includes one or more species, possessing 
sufficient resemblance in their nature and formation as to 
