OBSERVATIONS 
ON 
THE NATURAL FAMILY OF PLANTS 
CALLED 
COMPOSITE. 
BY ROBERT BROWN, F.R.S. LIBR. L.S. 
Read Feb. 6 and 20, 1816. 
The class Syngenesia of the Linnean artificial system, as at pre¬ 
sent limited, constitutes a family strictly natural, and by far the 
most extensive in the vegetable kingdom. It is also, with the ex¬ 
ception of Grasses only, the most generally diffused, and is almost 
equally remarkable with that order, for the great apparent unifor¬ 
mity in the structure of its essential parts of fructification. 
This 
