BOTANY AS APPLIED TO VETERINARY SCIENCE. 
By Walker Watson, M.R.C.V.S., Rugby. 
The Natural System. 
This system, as first sketched out by Jussieu, and enlarged 
by De Candolle and other botanists, will require a more 
detailed description, it being the one most generally adopted 
by botanists, and also that by which I shall be guided in de¬ 
scribing the plants I purpose bringing under notice. 
The chief difference between the Linnean and the Natural 
systems is this, that whereas a plant may be at once recognised 
as belonging to the former by the number and situation of its 
reproductive organs, it conveys to us no knowledge of the 
general relationship as regards properties, &c., which one 
plant bears to another. On the other hand, by the Natural 
system plants are grouped together into classes which most 
resemble each other, not only as regards their reproductive 
organs, but by the general structure, properties, and habits of 
tbe whole. To illustrate this we take the Atropa belladonna 
(deadly nightshade ), and find according to the Linnean 
system it belongs to the class Pentandria (having five sta¬ 
mens), order Monogynia (having one stile). From this we 
get no information as to the general characters of the other 
plants belonging to the same class and order, many of which 
in fact possess widely different properties. But examining 
this same plant according to the Natural system, we find it to 
belong to the class Exogena, Natural order Solanaceae 
(nightshades) , and we may at once infer that the plants be¬ 
longing to this order possess similar properties, which indeed 
w r e find to be the case, all being more or less poisonous. Such, 
for instance, are the Hyoscyamus niger (henbane), Datura 
stramonium (thorn apple), Nicotiana tabacum {tobacco), 
and others. 
The Natural System divides plants into three great 
primary divisions, viz.. Exogens or Dicotyledons, Endogens or 
Monocotyledons, and Acrogens or Acotyledons. These three di¬ 
visions are distinguished from each other in the following 
manner: 
l. EXOGENS OR DICOTYLEDONS. 
To this division belong most of our European plants. The 
class may be known by the following characters: 
