Systema itaque est acus illa magnetica, quae ex immenso "Rerum naturalium Oceano in portum nos ducit; est spe"culum nitidissimum, quod uno quasi intuitu cujusque "Individui essentialem characterem, veramque imaginem "nobis ostendit; est denique Index rerum praecipuarum, quae ad Historiam naturalem rite addiscendam requirun"tur." 66 "NON EQUIDEM CONTENDO, SCIENTIAM NATURAE 66 SOLO SYSTEMATE LOCUPLETARI." SCOPOLI. ELEMENTS OF BOTANY. "Systema Linnæanum tironi omnium fortasse est "difficillimum. J. C. SCHAEFFER. THE SEXUAL SYSTEM of Linnæus is founded, as I have already observed, upon the beautiful doctrine of the SEXES OF PLANTS. According to this system, all known plants are distributed into different CLASSES, ORDERS, GENERA, SPECIES, and VARIETIES. The classes are twenty-four in number, and are formed from the NUMBER, the PLACE OF INSERTION, the PROPORTION, the CONNECTION, the DISPOSITION, or the ABSENCE of the stamens, or male organs of generation. The orders, or secondary divisions, are much more numerous, and in the first thirteen classes are founded exclusively upon the number of the styles, or female organst. In the remaining eleven classes, they are founded upon other circumstances, the principal of which have, indeed, already been mentioned, but will be more advantageously explained, in the particular illustration of those orders. See Part I. p. 170. + See Part I. page 178. CLASS I. MONANDRIA. ONE MALE. THE first class of the Sexual System is denominated MONANDRIA. This term, like the names of all the classes, and most of the orders, of the Linnean system, is derived from the Greek language*, The class Monandria embraces all those plants which have hermaphrodite flowers, that is, male and female organs, contained within the same calyx or corolla, and only one stamen, or anther. THIS class is subdivided into two orders, viz. MONOGYNIA and DIGYNIAt. These orders, as has already been intimated, are formed from the num. ber of the styles, or female organs. The plants of the first order have only one style, or female organ; those of the second have two. MONOGYNIA. ONE FEMALE. THIS order contains the following, among other, genera of plants, viz, Amomum, Renealmia, Curcuma, Monandria, from ovos, one or alone; and avng, a man or husband. + Digynia, from dis, two, and yʊn, a woman, or wife. Thalia, Myrosma, Maranta, Kampferia, Canna, Alpinia, Costus, Boerhaavia, Hippuris, and Salicornia. *** Two species of the genus Valeriana, viz. Valeriana rubra and V. Calcitrapa, belong to this first order of Monandria. DIGYNIA. TWO FEMALES. THIS order is much less extensive than the first, and contains the following genera, viz. Corispermum, Callitriche, Blitum, Cinna, and Mniarum. CHARACTER. LINNEUS has not offered his Sexual System, as a NATURAL SYSTEM. Nevertheless, we shall find, that some of the classes of this celebrated system are nearly natural, and that in others, various natural assemblages of plants may be found. The class of Monandria has no high claim to the character of a natural class. Indeed, it brings together vegetables of very unlike habits, or appearances, and of very opposite qualities. Hippuris and Salicornia, on the one hand, are very far removed from Canna and Amomum, on the other hand. |