THE 
BRITISH HERBAL. 
CLASS XV. 
Plants whofe flower is compofed of four petals regularly difpofed, in 
form of a crofs, and whofe feeds are contained in a regular pod, of 
a long and fender floape. 
THE plants of this clafs are fo effentially and obvioufly diftinguifhed from all others, and fo 
happily united among themfelves, that moft of the botanical writers have kept them to- 
gether, and in a diftind: clafs. 
Ray calls them herhx teirnpetald! filiqmfa ; and Tournefort, herbo' flore polypetalo cruciformi. Linnsus 
diftinguillics them by the name of tetradymmia ; the threads in the flower being ufually fix, and of 
thefe, four being always longer than the reft : thefe four he cfteems more efficacious in the fcecundatioa 
of the feeds ; and thence has named the clafs. 
This author places in the fame clafs thofe genera which have (hort, and thofe which have lono- 
pods, only diftinguilhing them as belonging to two feftions. Mr. Ray has done this before 
him, and fo have many others : but the diftinftion between the feveral genera is fo plain, and 
fo well obferved by nature, that they demand in a juft method to be arranged under two diftinft 
claffes. 
The very authors who place them together, always feparate them by a fubdivillon and they are 
diftinguilhed by eftabliHied titles univerfally received, and univerfally underflood ; thofe which have 
long pods being called herh,e fiUqmfa^ and thofe which have lliort ones, herb^ filiculof^. 
"We are unhappy in the Engliih language in a dearth of fcientilick terms ; we have no names on 
words that diftindly convey the fenfe of filiqua and fdicula, on which this reparation is founded ■ we 
only call them long pods and little pods ; but the term filkula is not in this cafe limply a diminu- 
tive ■, for the fhort pod differs in form as well as fize from the other. 
There is an antiquated word, ]hak, ufed by fome authors of credit, and adopted by our diflio- 
naries, for a huik, or covering of feeds : we Ihall, iij this want of terms for diftinflion, appropriate 
it to the fliort feed-veffel, called in Latin fiUcula, and call the other only a pod. 
Thus, having eftabliihed words to afcertain our meaning in each article, we fiiall follow the fteps 
of nature in the divifion of thefe plants, making thofe with pods, filiquiCy conftitute one clafs ; and 
thofe with fiales filicuU., another. 
•SERIES 
