147 
RemarJi's on the Flora Scotica o/^Dr Hooker. 
as differing in several points from those used in the artificial 
method to designate the same genera, little doubt is to be enter- 
tained about the impropriety of a repetition of Specific characters, 
or even of specific names, they being in no respect different 
from those used in the artificial method. 
The Synoptical Tables of the genera, at the head of each class, 
are, in general, perspicuous and neat. But it is apprehended 
that several of them are too intricately methodical for the stu- 
dent ; and the predilection for synoptical arrangement, which 
characterizes the acute Museologist, is displayed, wherever an 
opportunity occurs. The Grasses, for example, one of the most 
perplexing to the beginner of the natural tribes, are arranged 
with a degree of division and subdivision that cannot fail to 
puzzle the novice who has not a natural turn for the minutiae of 
arrangement. 
This intricacy of division is more remarkable in the Crypto- 
gamic Orders, where indeed it is more necessary. But could it 
not be so managed, that a few divisions, such as those recom- 
mended and used by Linnaeus, might be made sufficient to pre- 
serve the generic characters in their proper places, and, instead 
of puzzling the student, serve as a clue to guide him directly to 
the genus for which he was searching ? And is it not to be 
apprehended that a too frequent division abstracts from the 
naturality of the essential character ? 
The division of species ought in particular to be perspi- 
cuous, and, if possible, not to be subdivided, simplicity or 
unity being the essence of perspicuity. And it cannot but be 
regretted that the Hypnums, Bryums, Jungermannim, Leca- 
norae, and others, cannot be reduced to the regular method fol- 
lowed with less intricate genera. A want of uniformity is thus 
produced, which in an artificial system ought to be studiously 
avoided. But this want of uniformity is displayed also where 
there is less excuse for it than in the genera mentioned. The 
genus Rosa, of which there are only ten species described, has 
* Synopsis est dicholomia arbitraria, quae in^ar vice ad JSotanicem ducit, Li- 
mites autem non determinat, — Bot^ 
Clavis Classium synoptica est ex artis lege, nc confundantur, distinguenda, — 
PAil. BoU 
K 2 
