THE 
NATURAL ARRANGEMENT 
OF 
BRITISH PLANTS. 
PLANTS. 
Natural BODIES formed of dissimilar parts, of 
an organic structure, and although entirely destitute of the 
power of voluntarily moving from place to place, or of any 
organs of sensation, yet possessed of a living principle by 
which they grow and increase, acquiring nourishment, not 
by the ingestion of their food into an internal organ, i. e . a 
stomach, the assimilation of one part and the rejection of 
the remainder, but by the intus-susception of liquid mat- 
ters through a portion of their external surface, generally 
by the part, root , buried in the ground : capable of pro- 
ducing other individuals similar to themselves, either by 
the thrusting forth and subsequent spontaneous separation 
of sporae, gongyli, or turiones, organized from the first 
similarly to themselves, and expanding without fecunda- 
tion, or by the formation and dispersion of a kind of eggs, 
seeds, produced in one set of reproductive organs, the pis - 
tills, fecundated and rendered capable of expansion into a 
plant similar to its parent by the intromission of a fluid 
secreted by a different set of organs, the stamens, placed 
either upon another individual, more commonly on the 
same but separate, and still more commonly within the 
same covers, or flowers. These reproductive organs, when 
present, are rarely solitary, usually numerous, in each in- 
dividual, and enclosed in two covers, the inner cover, or 
Lloom, of a gay and lively colour, seldom uncovered. The 
T 2 
