THE 
BRITISH HERBAL. 
CLASS VI. 
Plants whofe flower is compofed of two petals, and is followed by a sihgl^ 
CAPSULE. 
THIS is a dafs extreamly diftinft ; and charaflerifed by the moll plain and obvious marljs. " 
It contains but a very fmall number of plants ; but one would imagine no fyllem could 
err fo far from tlie path of nature as to add any more to it, or to feparate thcfe ; the 
charafters by which they are diftinguifhed from all other plants, and allied to one another, being fo ex- 
tremely fingulat and ftriking : yet, in the modern methods and fyftems of botany, there is no place 
appropriated to thefe ; but they ftand at random among others. 
LinniEus has placed the water flarviort in his clafs of momndria, and the enchanter's mghljhade itl 
his clafs of dianiria ; becaufe there is but a fingle thread in the flower of the former, whereas there 
arc two in that of the latter: on thefe minute parts is the attention of that author fo fixed, that thefe 
plants, are feparated by the means of the threads ; although they agree with one another in the flower 
and feed-veffel ; and have in both a characler which is in common with few others. 
Thefe are the moll ufeful dillinaive marks: the more confpicuous fuch charafters are, and the 
fewer plants they unite, the clearer and more familiar will be the method, and the eafier and plainer- 
the fliudents road to the fcience. 
Mr. Ray includes thefe plants and thofe which have three petals to the flower, and a finale 
capfule for the feed, together in one clafs. He feems in this to have been influenced only by t°ie 
fmall number there arc of plants belongmg to each ; but this, as we have cbfetved, is a happinefs or 
thing to be fought, not avoided : we fliould obferve nature ftriftly where it is found ; and not confound 
her diftinaions, by joining plants where flie has feparated them fo plainly. Mr. Ray makes the 
number of petals a mark of diftinaion for a clafs in other cafes where the feed-veffel is finale ; and 
there is the fame caufe here. If the pentapetaU vafculifera:, or thofe which have five petals a'nd a 
fingle feed-.vcllel, be clanically diftinft from the dipetaU and tripctalx, thofe which have two, and 
three petals and a fingle feed-veffel s fo are thefe two kinds, the iipetaU, and tripetaU, bom one 
another : the reafon is exaftly the fame, and he who ufed the charafter taken from the number of 
petals as a claffical mark in one place, fiiould not have refufed it in another. 
SERIES r. 
Natives of Britain. 
Thofe of which there are one or more fpecies native or wild in this kirudom. 
N U 
I. 
WATER-STARWORT. 
STELLARIJ. 
»J-'HE flower is compofed of two petals, and has no cup : the feed-veffel is round and compreffcd. 
LmnffiUS places this among his monandria digynia ; there being only one thread in each flower, 
and the ftyles, or filaments, from the rudiment of the capfule being two. 
This author takes away its ufual nmefiellaria, and calls the genus coriffermum ; uniting with it, 
under that name, the rhagrojiis, sl diftinft genus, as we fliall fliew in its place. 
4 DIVI- 
