THE 
BRITISH HERBAL. 
CLASS XXII. 
Plants whofe flower is formed of a fmgle fetal, divided into five parts at 
the edge; whofe feeds ft and naked, and are four in nmnber after every 
flower ; and whofe leaves are placed alternately or irregularly, net in 
pairs, upo?t the flails. 
THIS is a clafs as naturally and as obvioufly dillinguilhed from all others, as any of the pre. 
ceding. The plants which compofe it wear a plain and perfeft refemblance of one another, 
and are unlike all others. This equally joins them under one head, and feparates all the 
reft from them. Their place, in a natural arrangement of the genera, is marked by Nature ; for 
they follow thofe which have four feeds, in the fame manner ; but have their leaves in pairs, and have 
labiated flowers. Their charafters, which feparate them from thefe, are incommunicable ; while 
what they have in common with them is alfo throughout the whole feries unvaried. 
So regular, fo accurate is Nature in her diftincSlions. Mr. Ray, who lludied her in her owa 
courfe, perceived it. He took in the difpofition of the leaves, as well as the ftructure of the flowers, 
into his claflical charaflers ; and by that praflice he kept thefe plants together, which others have 
fcattered over their works. 
Linnsus limits the claflical charaSers of plants to the confideration of the more minute parts of 
their flowers ; therefore he mult fail in cafes where the general external fafliion of the flower makes 
the diftinftion, much more where Nature has placed the great mark of diflintftion in the fituation 
and difpofition of the leaves ; which he never admits as a claflical, nor indeed as a generical diftiniftion, 
but only as a part of the defcription of the fpecies. 
Ray calls thefe the afperifoliate plants, guided by the roughnefs of the leaves of many of them : but 
that is an ill-chofen term. The name of a clafs mufl: be equally applicable to every plant belonging 
to it -, and how docs this agree with hounds-tongue ? 
Borage and buglofs. have rough leaves; but there are others properly of this clafs, which have 
them altogether fmooth. 
Nature h.is connefled thefe plants by a fimilarity even in their frriallefl; parts and Linnsua, 
who does not allow them to conftitute'a. diftina clafs, is obliged by his method,: which regard^j 
only the threads in the flower, to keep mofl; of them together. 
They make a part of his fifth clafs, ihc fenlandria : but fome of them are feparated by his attach- 
ment to thefe leffer parts -, and with the refl; he has mixed in the fame clafs plants fo unlike in na- 
ture, that boys muft laugh to fee them brouglit together. The affie tm and the honeyfiukk, night- 
(liade and huckthorn, join with horra^e and buglcfi to make the clafs of the psntandria,^ 
6 
SERIES 
