T fl E 
BRITISH HERBAL. 
CLASS XXIX, 
Plants whofe flower is compofed of fix petals^ or has fx fegments ; whofe 
feed-veffel is divided into three cells^ C072tai?ii77g each a dotihle feries of 
feeds \ whofe leaves are graffy^ afid whofe root cojffls of a fngle^ romidifh 
lumpy with fbres fro7n the bafe. 
THESE are a numerous and very beautiful feries of plants ; and all who have taken the plain 
road of Nature in forming fyftems of botany, have therefore kept them in one clafs, and 
feparated all others from them. Ray calls them the bulbous rooted plants ; this kind of root 
being univerfally undcrftood by the term li'?;/^ ; and the leaves from all of them are long, flender, 
and without footftalks, which is the fenfe of the term g?'ajjy. 
Linnsus, as is his cuftom, takes the charader of the clalTes in which thefe plants are arranged, 
from the number of filaments in the flower ; and in this inflance, as in every other, he feparates thofa 
genera which Nature has allied into the moft remore parts of his fyftem > and joins with every dlvi- 
fion of them thole which fhe feparates moft widely from them. Thus, in his method, the cokhkum 
and crocus, aliied as clofely as two diflindl genera can be, are feparated by three claiies j the crocus 
being one of his third, becaufe there are but three threads in the flower j and the cokh'icum one of his 
fixth clafs, becaufe there are in that fix filaments. 
Let the unprejudiced examine thefe two plants, and judge between us, whether Linnaeus have 
done well in feparating, or I in bringing them again together. The refpecft I have for this author, 
notwithfl:anding my diflike to his fyitem, makes it difagreeable to me to accumulate cenfures upon 
him : but, in fupport of the exceptions made to his method in this refpect, I muft add, that, 
befide feparating thefe plants from one another, he has joined in the fame clafs with the crocus the 
tamarind-tree, and with the cohhictm and tulip he has placed the afparagus and berherry-hijh. 
SERIES I; 
British Genera. 
Thofe of which one or more fpecies are naturally wild in this country. 
GENUS I. 
G A R L I C K. 
:. -- ALLIUM. 
THE flower is compofed of fix petals, and the fced-veffel is very broad and ftort. A number 
of thefe flowers are contained in a common fcabbard, which is roundifh, and terminates in a 
Tingle or double point. The feeds are numerous, and roundini. 
Linna:us ranges this among the hcxandrin mono^ynia ; the threads being fix, and the flyle Angle. 
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