225 
COMPARISON OF THE TWO SYSTEMS OF BOTANY. 
The perusal of the Article on " Botanical Classification," July, No. 76, p. 129, 
has elicited the following remarks from a constant reader of " The Magazine of 
Botany," and which it is hoped may place — not the merits of the Linnaean and 
Jussieuan System — but the application of them, in a true point of view. 
It is not at all wished to deny, or even to infuse a doubt of, any one of the 
positions assumed by the writer of the articles just referred to, because they are 
essentially sound and tenable ; but while waiting for the promised " articles explana- 
tory of its basis, (alluding to the Natural System,) principal divisions, and most 
extensive or interesting orders," it will be shown that there are points which have 
not been considered, but which ought to be known by every tyro in botanical 
study, in order to qualify him to form a correct judgment of what aids and sources 
of information he ought to have recourse to with a view to facilitate his researches. 
Example is frequently better than precept ; and in the present instance, one 
can be adduced so much to the purpose, that it would be very uncandid to with- 
hold it. 
The knowledge of structure, so much insisted upon, may exist, and be carried 
to a great extent, with even a total ignorance of names or nomenclature. A man 
therefore may be a profound scholar in Physiological botany, without being 
acquainted with one single plant. by name ; and to him the Natural System — that 
is, the Science of Physiological and Structural Botany — will be quite familiar. 
But to the gardener, the mere practical man, this highest knowledge is, as it were, 
a sealed book ; yet his profession demands that he should be acquainted with 
names. 
There are also many persons who love order and classification, and who seek 
to know, familiarly, the external structure and titles of the plants they cultivate 
or meet with. The pursuits of such persons are not only innocent, but laudable, 
and ought by all means to be encouraged : they have not, perhaps, time to enter 
deeply into scientific research, or what is more to the point, their organization 
does not qualify them to take rank among the learned few. 
Imagine the case of a person having a flower sent to him which he had never 
seen before, its structure extremely curious, but affording no direct clue by which 
to discover what is its position or name among the orders of the Natural System. 
Some single prominent feature is clearly required to serve as a direction-post to the 
research. After patient and deliberate investigation with every kind of instrument 
and power that are applicable to the flower, the arrangement of the stamens is 
found to offer the only certain key to the hoped for discovery. Such an incident 
really occurred to a friend, who states the following particulars : — 
The filaments were numerous, threadlike, in fire distinct ranks, lying flat in 
close arrangement upon the five petals ; they were free throughout their whole 
VOL. VI. NO. LXX. G Gr 
