BOTANICAL APHORISMS, 189 
already laid down are at the same. time to be ob- 
served, 
§ 176. 
The umbelliferous planis, (§ 143, No. 45), have, 
of all the natural families, the greatest resemblance 
to one another. They are all furnished with a pen- 
tapetalous corolla, five stamina, an inferior germen, 
two pistilla; and even the mode of florescence and 
the fruit, which consists of two naked seeds, are si- 
milar. Linnzus imagined he had found a discri- 
minating circumstance in the general and partial in- 
volucrum, (§ 36), by which the genera were to be 
ascertained ; but this part is subject to great varia- 
tion, and can in very few cases afford a good cha- 
yacter, Another difference has been found in the 
fruit. Though this always consists of two naked 
seeds, yet their ficure is remarkably different; and 
upon this alone are founded the generic characters 
in the natural order of Umbellifere, 
§ 177. 
{a the labiated and ringent flowers, or the whole 
fourteenth class of the Linnean System, (§ 139), 
the genera are established on the corolla, the calyx, 
and the direction of the stamina. In the first or- 
der, (§ 140), the fruit, which in the whole is si- 
milarly formed, affords no character, any more than 
the style, for in most the fruit consists of four 
naked seeds; the pistillum consists of a simple style 
and a bifid stigma. It is the laciniz of the calyx, 
the yariously formed lips of the corolla, and,, ina 
M4 few 
