PRELIMINARY KNOWLEDGE.

...[due to the] dissimilarity of its parts, I separate the Hairy Wood-grass original: Gramen nemorosum hirsutum; likely a species of Luzula or Wood-rush and count it among the Grasses, with which it agrees in these features. Thus, I consider the Small Yellow Water-lily with a fringed flower original: Nymphæam luteam minorem flore fimbriato of Caspar Bauhin [C. B.] and the Smallest White Water-lily or Frog-bit original: Morsum ranæ to be species of Water-lily, even though they agree with the other Water-lilies neither in Flower nor in Fruit, because of the similarity of their leaves and overall habit. So Mr. Magnol Pierre Magnol (1638–1715), a French botanist after whom the Magnolia is named. says in the Preface to his Catalogue of the Montpellier Garden: “It is necessary,” he says, “to count among the true and genuine Toadflaxes original: Linarias both those which have flat seed and those which have round seed.” The same is to be said concerning the species of Spurrey original: Spergulæ. “And whether the Bird’s-foot Trefoil original: Lotus has pods divided into cells or not, they are genuine species of Bird’s-foot Trefoil.” So (these are the words of Mr. Volckamer Johann Georg Volckamer (1662–1744), a German physician and botanist. in the Preface to the Flora of Nuremberg): “Every single member of the Mallow and Hollyhock family known to us so far boasted a single-petaled flower divided into five parts; nonetheless, we possess from the famous Cape of Good Hope in Africa a rarer Marsh-mallow original: Althæam with a golden and almost spiral flower, which as it withers, breaks apart into five petals that are truly separated from one another.” Likewise (the same author in the same place), the African Berry-bearing Chrysanthemum is enangiospermon vessel-seeded; seeds enclosed in a fruit or vessel, whereas the rest of the plants of this genus, by everyone’s common consent—and rightly so—are referred to the Gymnosperms naked-seeded; seeds appearing to be "naked" rather than enclosed in a fleshy fruit.

To speak briefly, the best Method of Plants is one in which all genera—whether the highest, the intermediate, or the lowest—share several common attributes, or agree in several parts and characteristics. However, Nature, I believe, does not allow for a Method of this kind. The next best thing is a method in which all plants that share several common attributes are referred to their own genera; while the rest, among which no agreement or similarity of multiple parts or characteristics is found, are distinguished by more general marks based on their agreement in one particularly notable part—namely, the structure of the Flower, its regularity, or the number of petals...