PART III. 
CLASSIFICATION. 
Note. As the pupil, in the first part of this volume, is introduced to a 
knowledge of the leading principles of the Linnsean system ; some repeti- 
tion must necessarily occur in the following part, in which the principles 
of classification are to be more fully considered. 
LECTURE XX. 
Method of Tournefort. — System of Linnaeus. — Method of Jus- 
sieu. — Natural Method of Linnaeus. 
Let us now imagine the whole vegetable kingdom, compri- 
sing innumerable millions of individual plants, to be spread out 
before a botanist. Could he, in the course of the longest life, 
number each blade of grass, each little moss, each shrub or even 
each tree ? If he could not even count them, much less could 
he give each one a separate name and description. But he does 
not need to name them separately, for he sees that nature has 
arranged them into sorts or kinds. Were you sent into the 
fields to 'gather flowers of a similar kind, you would need no 
book to direct you to put into one parcel all the red clover blos- 
soms, and into another the white clover ; while the dandelions 
would form another group. These all constitute different spe- 
cies. Nature would also teach you that the red and white clo- 
ver, although differing from each other in some particulars, yet 
bear a strong resemblance. By placing them together you form 
a genus , and to this genus you refer all the different kinds or 
species of clover. When you see the red, damask, and cinna- 
mon roses, you perceive they all have such strong marks of re- 
semblance as to entitle them to be placed together in one genus. 
But yet you know that the seed of a damask rose would never 
produce a red rose. One species of plants can never produce 
another species, however near may be their resemblance. 
The whole number of species of plants which have been 
named and described, including many which have been recent- 
ly discovered in New Holland and about the Cape of Good 
Hope, is said to be 56,000.* 
♦According as recently reported by the Baron Humboldt, to the French 
National Institute. 
Classification — Nature arranges plants into kinds or sorts — Number of 
known species. 
