covered, by which they can be grouped, so as to 
combine uniformity of botanical character and sim- 
ilarity of medicinal quality. We are induced to 
notice this subject from the sweeping assertions of 
some botanists, who rely somewhat too implicitly 
on the newly-established natural orders, as divisions 
of the vegetable world, in which a single individual 
may stand as a likeness of the whole, particularly 
as respects their properties and powers medicinally. 
In science, as in common life, we frequently see that 
a novelty in system or in practice cannot be duly 
appreciated till time has sobered the enthusiasm of 
its advocates. 
It has been asserted that all the plants belonging 
to the natural order Solaneae are poisonous. Now 
the potato is one of the Solaneae, the egg plant 
and the tomato also, each of which form whole- 
some articles of food. It is not sufficiently satis- 
factory to say that they are rendered innoxious only 
by cooking. Other natural orders are in this par- 
ticular equally anomalous. In the order Labiatae 
the pea and bean are not unwholesome, whilst the 
laburnum is a poison. Amongst the Umbellifereae, 
will be found the nutritious carrot and parsnip, and 
the poisonous conium and cicuta. In this order too, 
we may oppose the assafcetida to the caraway, and 
the galbanum to the cummin. Even in a single 
genus of this order, cenanthe, the roots of one spe- 
cies, crocata, are poisonous, whilst those of another, 
pimpenelloides are edible. These anomalies we 
could multiply, but sufficient are stated to prevent 
too implicit a confidence on any system, as afford- 
ing divisions indicating uniformity of quality. 
Sweet’s FI. Gar. 2, 177. 
