PRELIMINARY KNOWLEDGE.

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...Mr. Tournefort, in order to prove it is four-peteta?led—unless he should acknowledge that, on account of its similarity in other respects, it ought to be referred to the Class of Tetr?apetalous four-petaled plants, whether it were five-petaled or four-petaled? Otherwise, because of a five-petaled flower, it would have been easy for him to exclude it from this genus and refer it to some other. But this is not the only plant of this genus that produces a five-petaled flower, since the African Nasturtium with ternate leaves, with the appearance of Baneberry original: Nasturtium Africanum foliis ternis, facie Christophórianæ; described in Paul Hermann’s Paradisus Batavus (1698). possesses a five-petaled flower. Likewise, we do not refuse to consider Boccone's Betony-leaved Mallow original: Malvam Betonicæ folio Bocconis; named after Sicilian botanist Paolo Boccone. as a genuine species of Mallow, if it agrees with Mallow in its other characteristics (for we have not yet seen the plant itself), although it lacks that characteristic which, following Spigelius Adriaan van den Spiegel (1578–1625), a Flemish botanist and anatomist., we established as the defining mark original: Characteristica of Mallow—namely, having seeds arranged in the shape of a little cheese A traditional term for the disc-shaped seed pods of the mallow plant. or a small wheel.

In my Dissertation on the Various Methods of Plants original: Dissertatione de variis Plantarum Methodis (1696)., I conceded that complete agreement in both the Flower and the Fruit simultaneously is an indubitable sign of generic relationship. Accordingly, the opposite would follow: that those things which differ in Flower and Fruit, differ in genus. However, I see that this must not be admitted when the appearance, habit, and texture of the whole plant are opposed to it. Thus, the Great Rush or Bulrush original: Juncum seu Scirpum maximum, the Rush with Horsetail heads original: Juncum capitulis Equiseti, and their relatives—which produce scaly heads, and under each individual scale produce single, three-sided original: triquetra, naked seeds—and the Common Smooth Rush with a scattered panicle original: Juncum levem vulgarem paniculâ sparsâ and others—which produce a stamen-like flower provided with a six-leaved calyx, and a triangular fruit divided into three cells (or certainly opening original: dehiscentem into three parts) containing many seeds—these I do not separate. Rather, on account of the similarity in their whole external appearance, constitution, and texture, I reduce them to the same genus, by the unanimous consent not only of all Botanists, but of the entire human race. Conversely, from these same Rushes, notwithstanding the conformity of Flower and Fruit, because of the different habit and texture of the plant and of the remaining