Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/462

This page has been validated.
432
POLYANDRIA.

influenced me in the preceding class. They now only serve to keep natural genera asunder, the species of which not only differ among themselves as to number of pistils, but each species is often variable besides. The genera are so few that no inconvenience could arise on that account. I conceive such reforms, founded in experience not in theory, serve to strengthen the system, by greatly facilitating its application to practice.

7. Polygynia. An order for the most part natural, comprehending some fine exotic trees, as Dillenia, Exot. Bot. t. 2, 3, 92 and 93; Liriodendron, the Tulip-tree; the noble Magnolia, &c.; a tribe concerning whose genera our periodical writers are falling into great mistakes. To these succeed a family of plants, either herbaceous or climbing, of great elegance, but of acrid and dangerous qualities, as Anemone, in a single state the most lovely, in a double one the most splendid, ornament of our parterres in the spring; Atragene and Clematis, so graceful for bowers; Thalic-