Volume 1

Scientific papers of Asa Gray / selected by Charles Sprague Sargent.

  • Asa Gray
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Scientific papers of Asa Gray / selected by Charles Sprague Sargent. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    9 REVIEWS. wonder as did Dr. Torrey’s edition of Lindley’s “ Introduc- tion to the ^Natural System of Botany.” Now we can hardly believe that either the author or the American editor of the work referred to were ever in danger, as was honest Dr. Faustus, of being burned for witchcraft, neither do we find anything in its pages calculated to produce such astonishing effects, except, perhaps, upon the minds of those botanists, if such they may be called, who had never dreamed of any important changes in the science since the appearance of good Dr. Turton’s translation of the “Species Plantarum,” and who speak of Jussieu as a writer who “has greatly im- proved upon the natural orders of Linnaeus.” 1 We have no hesitation, however, in expressing our conviction that no single work has had such a general and favorable influence upon the advancement of botanical science in this coun- try, as the American edition of Dr. Lindley’s Introduc- tion to the Natural System. This treatise, however useful, 1 I)r. Lindley is quite right in his remark that the chief difficulties the student has to encounter in the study of botany, upon the principles of the Natural System, have been very much exaggerated by persons who have written upon the subject without understanding it. To refer to a single instance. In the fifth edition of the Manual of Botany, by Mr. Eaton, an account of the Natural Orders of Jussieu is given, in which the genera Ambrosia and Xanthium are referred to Urticece ; and in a note it is added, “ Some botanists place the last two genera in the order Corym- biferce also in the Linnaean class Syngenesia. I see no good reason for these innovations.” Now Linnaeus, in his artificial arrangement, certainly did place these genera (and also Parthenium and Iva) in Moncecia Pen- tandria • but the innovator in this instance is Jussieu himself, who never referred these two genera to Urticece, but places them in his order Corym- biferce (Compositce), where they truly belong. The descriptions of Natu- ral Orders in Eaton’s Manual, purporting to be taken from Jussieu, bear a very remote resemblance indeed to the ordinal characters of the admi- rable Genera Plantarum of that author, while the occasional criticisms on its supposed errors afford the clearest proof that the work was not understood by the author alluded to. It should be recollected that, pre- viously to the reprint of Dr. Lindley’s Introduction, Mr. Eaton’s Manual was the only work professing to give a view of the Natural System within the reach of the great majority of the botanical students of his country, excepting, perhaps, the American edition of Smith’s Grammar of Botany.
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