Volume 1

A natural arrangement of British plants, according to their relations to each other as pointed out by Jussieu, De Candolle, Brown, &c. ... / With an introduction to botany ... By Samuel Frederick Gray.

  • Gray, Samuel Frederick, 1766-1828.
Date:
1821
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A natural arrangement of British plants, according to their relations to each other as pointed out by Jussieu, De Candolle, Brown, &c. ... / With an introduction to botany ... By Samuel Frederick Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/900
    ».< PREFACE. Linnzeus, considering only the external appearance of the flower and fruit, despaired of finding this clue; but the favourers of the older arrangements have bestowed so much attention in examining the internal organization of plants, particularly of the fruit and seed, and various organs, which were neglected by the Linnzean nomenclators, that this desirable point is now attained. The present work exhibits the results of the latest investigations into the mutual, affinities of plants; and the synopsis of the subdivisions attached to the several divisions furnishes a clue which will enable a student to trace the connexion of the several parts, and their dependence upon each other. When the author considered the great pains which had been taken with many of the families, and especially with those, which, from their not plainly exhibiting the sexual organs, were huddled together by Linneeus in his twenty-fourth class, which contains probably far more plants than all his other twenty-three classes put together; and that there had not yet appeared in this country any detailed account of these researches, he was led to engage in preparing this system for the use of the Iinglish students of this delightful species of knowledge. | An essential difference exists between the mere deter- mination of the name of plants, and the study of their affinities to each other. ‘Lhe nomenclature of plants re- quires the study of so many only of their organs, and such a slight consideration of these as may suffice to determine the difference that may exist betwixt any two plants that might otherwise be confounded. The scientific study of their affinities requires, on the contrary, the whole of their organization to be kept in view, and the changes it may undergo during their natural life; hence there arises a necessity for a more accurate discriminatign of the various forms of their organs than is required for the nomenclature only. The botanists of the natural school have, therefore, been led to invent a far greater number of terms than were introduced into use when Linnzeus wrote his Philosophia