THE 
T 
BRITISH HERBAL. 
CLASS XXIII. 
Plants whofe flower h formed of a fingle petal, divided deeply into four 
fegments, mid fucceeded hy fm feeds ; and whofe leaves are placed 
feveral together at every joint, and expanded like the rays of a far. 
HIS is a clafs diftinguilhed with great certainty by Nature, and by very obvious charafters. 
Mr Ray has followed, as ufual, her fteps, and kept the plants dilVinft from all others, in a 
peculiar clafs, under the name of herlx ftd'Mx, the ftellate plants : but they are blended 
among many others by the modern writers ; they not admitting the difpofition of leaves, however fin- 
pular," into the number of claffical, or even generical diftinftions. 
• The confcquences of each method are obvious. In Mr. Ray thefe plants are kept together, and no 
others are mixed among them, or joined to them : in Linns:us, and his followers, they are feparated 
into various claffes, and in each joined with plants the moft unlike that ftudious error could have 
chofen •. cka-an is ranked with fmhiom among the tetrnndria ; and crojfwort is put ten claffes off, 
with pdUtory of the wall and orach. 
This confirms, like the reft, the impropriety of that method. 
SERIES I. 
Natives o/" B R I T A I N. 
Thofe of which there is one or more Ipecics naturally wild in this kingdom. 
G E N U S I. 
C R O S S W O R T. 
C R U C I AT A. 
nr-I-iF Howcrs are of Wo kinds, male and hermaphrodite upon the fame plant. The hermaphro- 
dite rtowt-r tonds fingle on its ftalk : it is formed of one petal, and is divided at the top into 
four oval and lharp-pointed fegments. There is ftarce any cup to this, but in its place a rudiment 
of the fruit, which afterwards ripens into a pair of feeds, covered with a tough fkin, and fo clofely 
ioined that they feem but one. The male flowers are placed upon the rudiment of the other on 
each fi'de • and each is formed of a fingle petal, divided uncertainly into three or lour legments, which 
are oval and acute. This has a rudiment of a fruit underneath it, as the other but it never ripens. 
Linnjcus places this among the fohgamia menxcia; the feveral flowers, though diftind m fc.-c, 
yet growing on the &me plant, and t'he impregnation of the feeds being by male and hermaphro- 
dite ones. 
Croffworr. 
