Enneandria^ 
( t5 ) 
RHUBARB. 
W E received many Plants under the Name of Rhubarb into our Gardens, 
for Men were curious to know, to what Species that ineftimable Root 
belonged. They often were deceived, for thofe were ignorant who 
undertook to gather it 5 but among many Errors, ’tis plain enough there came 
alfo Truth. This Specimen was from the North of China, wild upon the 
Hills, where a great deal of Rhubarb is taken up for Commerce. I received it 
from one too careful to make Miftakes 5 and who had Opportunities of know- 
ing. The Seeds came with it, and the Plants which rife from them, I think, 
will (hew, that the Species, now called Rhubarb, in our beft Gardens, is fo. The 
Difference between that and the prefent Figure, is no more than would natu- 
rally rife from Culture, and a different Climate. 
Altho’ the Flowers are trifling, there is fufficient Beauty in the Whole. The 
Leaves have a bold and elegant Wave upon their Edges j and the Stature of the 
Plant, together with their Difpofition, the colouring of the Stalk, and fre- 
quent Purple of the Ribs in the lower Leaves, make it extreamly well worth 
Culture ; elpecially as it requires little Care, and lives in full Expofrire. 
The Plant is a Yard high, and its Clufter of Leaves even without a Stalk, 
have fufficient Elegance. The Flowers are pale, they have no Cup, and one 
fmall Petal forms them clofe at the Bafe, and cut into fix Segments. 
They err’d who plac’d it with the Docks ; though its Flowers, Seeds, and 
whole Habit, naturally might have juftified the Miftake in Times when 
the prefent Diftindlions of Plants were not fufficiently known. The certain 
Chara 61 ;ers of the fexual Syftem plainly feparate it. Perhaps a natural Me- 
thod will fome Time change the Face of Things again. The Filaments in the 
Flower are nine, and this invariably, according to the Laws of the prefent Sy- 
ftem, place it in the ninth Clafs, the Enneandria. As the laft named Species 
were referr’d to the Hexandria for their fix Filaments, the Plants of the two 
intermediate Claffes, the Heptandria and 0 (ftandria, are chara6fer’d by Seven 
and by Eight: the prefent has its Place in the fucceeding Divifion for its Num- 
ber 5 and differs from the Dock-kinds, whofe exterior Form it wears, becaufe 
they have but fix. Yet it agrees in other Characters, nearly related to this 
Claffic-mark, with thofe refembling Plants. The Heads of the Styles are three, 
as in the Docks 5 and tho’ the neceffary Diftribution of Linnseus feparates it 
three Claffes, yet the Advance, from fix to nine Filaments, being but a regular 
or proportional Gradation, perhaps Nature does not allow fo valt a Diftance of 
thefe Genera. 
When we fhall be able to attain a truly natural Order for Plants, probably 
this, and the Dock, which rife by a third in N^umber of thefe Parts, over one a- 
ther, will be brought together ; as the Crocus and the Colchicum before-nam’d, 
whofe Proportion of the Parts is double. Something there is in Nature, which 
authorizes this Opinion : and how ftrange fbever it might feem to a young Bota- 
nift, there is much more Difference between two Plants with fix and with feven 
Filaments, than between thofe which have fix and nine, or three and fix, thefe 
being proportional Variations 5 the other abfolute Differences. 
P O I N- 
Rheum Foliis Subvillofis Petiolis .ffiqualibus. Lin, 
