BOTANICAL APHORISMS. 177 
§ 165. 
The regularity of the flower is no certain generic 
character. 
The relative length of the petals is not always 
constant, and therefore affords no proper generic 
distinction. Suppose plants were discovered that 
differed only from one another in the irregularity of 
the flower, how undetermined would the science of 
Botany become, if the genera were to be multiplied 
from so trivial a circumstance! 
§ 166. 
The figure of the flower is always to be taken in 
preference to that of the fruit. 
There are more genera, whose species agree in 
the flower, than there are whose species agree in the 
form of the fruit. The older botanists were too at- 
tentive to the fruit, which when it only differs in 
external figure is of little importance. In the genus 
Pinus we have an apt example. Formerly several 
eenera were made of it, according as the fruit was 
round, or long, or pointed, or obtuse, &c. The 
number of the cells in a pericarp has likewise mis- 
led some botanists; but these alone can never be a 
discriminating circumstance; as number (§ 159) 
never affords generic characters. 
§ 167. 
Slight variations in the figure of the flower are of 
no consequence in establishing genera. 
M The 
