LINDLEY S VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
301 
glass-house, giving them larger pots as they 
grow bigger. These plants begin flowering 
at one year old, and may be put out in the 
open border in the end of May, or in June, if 
the weather is then fair. 
" Jasminum revolutum, a native of China, 
has endured the winters in the open air, under 
a wall, and begins to flower freely the end of 
May, or early in June, but has not produced 
seeds yet. Teuerium flavum, from the south 
of Europe, I put out under a low south wall, 
in the spring of 1816 ; it endures the severest 
winters in poor dry earth, and continues a fine, 
large, bushy plant. It produces ripe seed, 
which J. sow in a pot in spring ; the plants 
soon appear, they begin to flower at two years 
old. Coronilla valentina, a Spanish plant, 
several years ago, was planted in the open air, 
under a south wall, remaining in its pot. It 
endures the winter and flowers freely, dis- 
persing its pleasing fragrance to some distance. 
I reckon it a good method to revive plants by 
seed at times, for the flowers so obtained are 
more perfect in colour and shape. Coronilla 
glauca, a native of the south of France, has 
endured several winters in poor dry places 
under a wall, and flowers well, exhaling an 
agreeable perfume, and producing ripe seed in 
abundance in July. 
" Senecio lanceus, a native of the Cape of 
Good Hope, I put out under a south wall, in 
poor dry soil, in the spring of 1816. The 
same plant has endured every winter with no 
other protection ; its root is grown very strong; 
it is, however, killed down to the ground in 
winter ; in spring, it shoots up to full five feet 
high, flowers and bears seeds in plenty, sows 
itself all about the dry, gravelly, sandy places, 
and produces slight varieties ; several plants 
of it which stood last winter in the open bor- 
ders, are now flowering. Medicago arborea, 
a native of Italy, I put out in the spring of 
1816, in poor dry earth, under a south wall ; 
it stands the severest winters with no other 
protection, and flowers abundantly during most 
part of the year, producing seed, of which I 
have about one pound ; it sows itself here 
under a south wall ; the plants become seven 
or eight feet high." 
Of course, any one may observe from all 
this, that the plant requires its warm situation 
and protection, and has both. There is 
nothing to show that plants are altered, but 
that the place and circumstances attending the 
culture are made to conform to its nature. 
And here is the grand mistake which is made 
by every writer that we have noticed; we care 
not what the means are that are used, it is not 
the plant reconciled to the place, but the place 
reconciled to the plant. We know there are 
many ways of al teringt lie tern perature of a sit na- 
tion; and in nil the directions we ever saw for 
acclimatizing (as it is called) a plant, we have 
observed the means recommended merely tend 
to raise the temperature of the locality, not to 
harden the plant. 
lindley's vegetable kingdom.* 
It is seldom we have an opportunity of no- 
ticing a real book of gardening. There has been 
nothing like one since Loudon's Encyclopaedia. 
Periodicals and treatises, tracts, pamphlets, 
and hand-books, have abounded : Johnson on 
this, Hoare on that, Glenny on the other, and 
other people, who never try to reach beyond a 
paper in a magazine, or a little tome that we 
can put in our pockets, have favoured us, from 
time to time, with useful and popular small 
works ; but we have had nothing like a book 
for the library, of a distinct and standard cha- 
racter, for a long time ; and we rejoice in the 
appearance of a goodly volume, highly embel- 
lished with first-rate wood engravings, and 
prints from the glyphographic process, illus- 
trating the numerous families which make up 
"the vegetable kingdom." This work pro- 
fesses to give us the structure, classification, 
and uses of plants, illustrated upon the natural 
system, — a system which Professor Lindley 
was the fittest of all men to explain and de- 
monstrate, because he had already condemned 
that of Linnasus as a " once popular but super- 
ficial and useless system," — and therefore was, 
as it were, bound to supply us with the best 
exposition and application of that which was 
intended to supersede it. By way of fairly 
starting, we will place before our readers the 
author's own words, in portions, selected from 
his preface and introduction, and then examine 
how far the intentions of the writer have been 
carried out ; we merely observe en passant, 
that there are those who will not approve of 
the abrupt condemnation of the Linnasan sys- 
tem, which has been defended up to a very 
recent date, by no less a botanist than the 
editor of the Horttts Cantabrigiensis, in the 
preface to the last edition of that work. Our 
notions are, that most of the objections to the 
natural system applied to the carelessness 
with which different subjects were classed to- 
gether, rather than to the use of a natural 
system. Indeed, the author of the Vegetable 
Kingdom admits the want of information on 
the subject. He says, " In our own language 
there was nothing whatever ; and the natural 
system of arranging plants, although occasion- 
ally mentioned as a something extremely in- 
teresting, was currently regarded as the fond 
* The Vegetable Kingdom ; or, the Structure, Classi- 
fication and Uses of Plants, illustrated upon the Natural 
System. By John Lindley, Ph. D., F.R.S., L.S., &c. 
With upwards of Five Hundred Illustrations, London ; 
Bradbuvv and Evans. 
