[ '44 ] 
detradl from the methods of other authors ; mod: of 
them pleafe him ; none of them are without their in- 
conveniencies, and all have their advantages. The 
great point is, that the fpecies fhould be well defined, 
and that each genus fhould have its efiential charac- 
ter. Our author has generally adopted the genera of 
Linnaeus ; fome indeed he has taken from Haller ; 
but wherever he thought it expedient to differ from 
thefe great men, he gives his reafon ; and when he 
finds a plant, which cannot properly be ranged under 
any genus already eftablifhed, he forms a new one ; 
in the explanation of which, after the manner of 
Linnaeus, he omits nothing efiential thereto. 
To the different fpecies, difeover’d in this expedition, 
P. Gmelin has affixed names, after the manner of Lin- 
naeus, Haller, Van Royen, and the more modern bota- 
nifts, which are fuch, as that from the name of the fpe- 
cies the plant maybe known. But in what relates to the 
plants before difeover’d, he adopts the names given 
them by the botanifis juft now mentioned, and lcarce 
ever forms a new one ; as he thinks a name already 
received, though but an indifferent one, fhould be 
retained, in preference perhaps to a better ; left the 
number of fynonyms, already too great, fhould be 
augmented. To thefe he ufually adds the fynonyms 
of the Bauhins and Tournefort ; and fometimes, for 
the fake of their figures, thofe of Morrilon, Dodo- 
naeus, Plukenet, and Lcefelius ; and likewife thofe 
of the Ruffian botanifts, Mefierfchmid, Bauxbaum, 
and Amman. He has alfo throughout the work care- 
fully feparated the varieties of plants from their ge- 
nuine fpecies, and has laid down the places of their 
growth, the names given them by the inhabitants, 
and 
