BOTANY. 
9. ENNEAGYNIA, those with nine styles. 
10. Decacynta, those with ten styles. 
11. DoprEcacynra, those with eleven or twelve 
styles. 
12. Potyeynta, those with more than twelve 
styles. 
The orders of class 14, Didynamia, are only two; 
viZ., 
1. GyMNOSPERMIA, meaning seeds naked, the 
achenia - like fruits having been taken 
for naked seeds. 
2. ANGIOSPERMIA, with the seeds evidently 
in a seed-vessel or pericarp. 
The 15th class, Tetradynamia, is also divided 
into two orders, which are distinguished by the mere 
form of the pod :— 
1. Smmicutosa; the fruit a silicle, or short 
pod. 
2. Smrrquosa; fruit a silique, or more or less 
elongated pod. 
The orders of 16th, 17th, 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22d 
classes, depend merely on the number of stamens; 
that is, on the characters of the first 13 classes, 
whose names they likewise bear: thus, 
Order 1. Monanpri1a; 2. Dranpria; and so on. 
The orders of the 19th class, Syngenesia, are six, 
viz., 
1. PotyGamMIA QUALIs, where the fiowers 
are in heads and all perfect. 
2. PoLYGAMIA SUPERFLUA, the same as the 
last except that the rays, or marginal 
flowers of the head, are pistillate only. . 
3. PoLYGAMIA FRUSTRANEA, those with the 
marginal flowers neutral, the others 
perfect. 
4, PoLYGAMIA NECESSARIA, where the mar- 
ginal flowers are pistillate and fertile, 
and the central (those of the disk) sta- 
minate and sterile. 
5. PoLYGAMIA SEGREGATA; where each 
flower of the head has its own proper 
— involucre. 
6. Monogamra, where solitary flowers (that 
is, not united into a head) have united 
anthers, as in Lobelia. This order 
was abolished by succeeding botanists, 
but upon very insufficient grounds. 
The 23d class, Polygamia, has three orders, 
| founded on the characters of the two preceding 
classes, viz., 
1. Monacra, where both separated and per- 
fect flowers are found in the same in- 
dividual. 
2. Diacra, where the different flowers oc- 
cupy different individuals. 
3. Triamcra, where one individual bears the 
perfect, another the staminate, and a 
third the pistillate flowers. 
The orders of the 24th class, Cryptogamia, are 
natural, and therefore indefinable by a single charac- 
ter. They are 
1. Fruicrs, the Ferns. 
2. Musct, the Mosses. . 
3. ALGm, which, as left by Linneus, com- 
prised the Hepatice, Lichens, &c., as 
well as the Sea-weeds. 
4. Funer, Mushrooms, &e. 
Of the natural system.—The object proposed by 
the natural system of botany, is to bring together 
into groups those plants which most nearly resemble 
each other, not in a single and perhaps unimportant 
point (as in an artificial classification), but in all es- 
sential particulars; and to combine the subordinate 
groups into larger natural assemblages, and these 
into still more comprehensive divisions, so as to em- 
brace the whole vegetable kingdom in a methodical 
arrangement. All the characters which plants pre- 
| sent, that is, all the points of agreement or difference, 
are employed in their classification; those which are 
common to the greatest number of plants being used 
for the primary grand divisions; those less compre- 
hensive for subordinate groups, &c.; so that the 
character or description of each group, when fully 
given, actually expresses all the known particulars 
in which the plants it embraces agree among them- 
selves, and differ from other groups of the same rank. 
This complete analysis being carried through the 
system, from the primary divisions down to the spe- | 
cies, it is evident that the study of a single plant of 
each group will give a correct (so far as it goes), and 
often a sufficient idea of the structure, habits, and 
even the sensible properties of the whole. 
What we call a natural method, it may here be 
remarked, is so termed merely because it expresses 
the natural relationship of plants, as far as practi- 
cable; for every form yet contrived, or likely to be 
devised, is to a considerable extent artificial: Ist, 
Because the affinities of a particular group cannot be 
fully estimated until all its members are known; and 
thus the progress of discovery leads to changes, or 
modifies our views, as in every other department of 
knowledge. 2d, Because the boundaries of groups 
are not so arbitrarily circumscribed in nature, as 
they necessarily are in our classifications; but indi- 
viduals depart from the assigned limits in various 
directions (like rays from a centre); the ‘‘ edge of 
difference being as it were softened down by an easy 
transition.” 3d, Because that, even supposing the 
groups to be perfectly natural, and their affinities 
completely understood, it is impossible to arrange 
them in a single continuous series, in such a manner 
that each shall be preceded and followed by its near- | 
est allies; since the same family, for instance, may 
be about equally related to three or four others, only 
two of which points, at best, can be indicated in the 
lineal series which must be adopted in books. And 
4th, We are still obliged to use avowedly artificial | 
characters, for the sake of convenience; as in the 
arrangement of the numerous orders of Exogenous 
plants into the Polypetalous, Monopetalous, and 
Apetalous divisions, although different genera of the 
same order, or different species of the same genus, 
may present these very diversities. 
In explaining the general principles of classifica- 
tion, we proceeded from the species to the class; 
showing how groups of successive rank arise from the 
consideration of points of agreement. In applying 
them to the actual distribution of plants according 
to the generally received mode of classification, it 
will be more convenient to pursue the analytical 
course, and to show how the vegetable kingdom, 
taken as a whole, is divided and subdivided by re- 
garding the points of difference. Plants in general 
are composed of several kinds of elementary tissue; 
such as cells, fibres, and vessels, so arranged as to 
form an axis, which elongates in opposite directions, 
and bears distinct and regularly arranged appendages ; 
some of which (leaves) are organs of nutrition, while 
others form flowers, and serve for the production of | 
seed; that is, of bodies containing an embryo capable 
of development into a similar plant. ‘The varied 
forms are all evidently referable to this common type. 
But there are vegetables of a lower grade; in which 
this general plan is not only modified, but changed, 
—gradually indeed, for Nature presents no abrupt 
transitions, but so essentially that, in the most re- 
duced forms, no trace of the original type remains. 
The first index of this change of plan, is the disap- 
pearance of flowers; their place being supplied by 
apparatus, no doubt of analogous nature as well as 
office, but of structure irreconcilable to the former 
type. Hence the obvious and primary division of 
the. vegetable kingdom into two great series, the 
Flowering and the Flowerless plants. 
If our attention were first directed to the anatomi- 
cal structure and manner of growth, instead of the 
