Fig. 98, &c.-so are those named which inclose the flower-head or capitulum of such a plant as the daisy-Fig. 81. The singular hood-like appendage of the curious wake-robin-Fig. 82-is a bract, the leaf-like appendages to the spikes-Fig. 83— are also bracts; in the grasses the outer scales or glumes of the spikelets-Fig. 84-are bracts; in the hazel and willow the scales of the catkin are also called bracts. With the bracts terminates our description of the parts and characters of plants, or rather of such parts and characters as lie upon the surface, and most readily meet the eye of the 1 81. Blossom of common Daisy (Bellis perennis), showing the flower-head or capitulum. common involucre-1-of the observer. Almost superfluous must the remark be, that in our descriptions we have but skimmed the surface of our subject, we have but given such kind and amount of information as seemed best 82. Blossom of Wake-robin or Cuckoo-pint (Arum maculatum), showing the large bract-1-in this case called a spathe, which surrounds the reprodutive organs, the stamens-2-the pistils-3. 83. Scdge, or carex, showing the leaf-like bracts-3-which are situated at the base of the flower-spikes; the fertile, pistil, or seed-bearing spikes-2-the barren or stamenbearing spike-1. calculated to afford a good general idea of the characters which distinguish the native wild flowers of our own land, and of the principles on which botanical distinctions are based. Our next step must be to point out how the vegetable kingdom is mapped out by means of those plant characters which have just engaged our atten tion: how it is divided and subdivided, and its great leading classes marked off; how these again are resolved into tribes, families, and genera, so that the skilled botanist finding a plant he had never seen before, may, provided the plant has been enrolled with its brethren, as it were track it down, fix it in class, in tribe, in family, till he finds it amid its own kindred, associated with the other members of its own genus, and finally pounces upon it by the special mark of the individual. G 94 THE ARRANGEMENT OR CLASSIFICATION OF PLANTS. 66 Happy who walks with Him! Whom what he finds * * * * In nature, from the broad majestic oak COWPER. WHEN we reflect that somewhere about eighty thousand different kinds or species of flowering plants are now known to botanists, and that, in addition to this large number, there exists an immense variety of vegetable productions which bear no flowers, we may well believe how hopeless would be the task of acquiring any definite or useful knowledge of the vegetable kingdom as a whole, unless its various component parts were reduced to some kind of arrangement or classification. Indeed, when not above a tenth part of the plants now known had been discovered, the necessity for some order amongst them was manifest, and the natural affinities which so obviously gather certain plants into tolerably well-defined groups began to engage the attention of the first cultivators of the science of botany. Certain families of plants, such as the umbelbearers or hemlock-like tribes-Fig. 98-the labiates or mint-like tribe-Fig. 106—the grasses-Fig. 113 -present so strong a family resemblance one to the other, that they naturally, as it were, group themselves. But as very many plants, even though closely allied, are not so obviously linked together, the attempts at arrangement were found to be attended with great difficulty and confusion; so that it has only been of late years that the Vegetable Kingdom has been mapped out into anything like order, after the laboured and long-continued exertions of the most illustrious botanists. Before botany was cultivated scientifically, the first attempts at classification arranged plants as trees, herbs, and shrubs, further dividing them according to their medicinal or economical, their poisonous or harmless properties. As the limits of the subject extended, such vague arrangements were of course found useless, and many attempts were made to introduce some more serviceable method. It would be unprofitable here to enumerate all the plans of classification which have been propounded. The first, perhaps, of any account, was that of Tournefort, founded upon the form of the corolla; but this, even in the early stage of the science, was found impracticable in application. Nothing, in short, was effected, until the celebrated Linnæus appeared upon the stage, and brought forward his beautiful though artificial system, which, from the middle of the last century, until the last fifteen or wenty years, was principally used by botanists. Being an artificial system, however, it has necessarily been superseded by that extended knowledge of science which has enabled botanists to construct. the natural system of the vegetable kingdom according to the natural affinities of plants. Linnæus |