Page:History of botany (Sachs; Garnsey).djvu/140

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Development of the Natural System under
[Book I.

63. Cruciferae.
64. Capparides.
65. Sapindi.
66. Acera.
67. Malpighiae.
68. Hyperica.
69. Guttiferae.
70. Aurantia.
71. Meliae.
72. Vites.
73. Gerania.
74. Malvaceae.
75. Magnoliae.
76. Anonae.
77. Menisperma.
78. Berberides.
79. Tiliaceae.
80. Cisti.
81. Rutaceae.
82. Caryophylleae.

Class XIV.

83. Sempervivae.
84. Saxifragae.
85. Cacti.
86. Portulaceae.
87. Ficoideae.
88. Onagrae.
89. Myrti.
90. Melastomae.
91. Salicariae.
92. Rosaceae.
93. Leguminosae.
94. Terebinthaceae.
95. Rhamni.

Class XV.

96. Euphorbiae.
97. Cucurbitaceae.
98. Urticae.
99. Amentaceae.
100. Coniferae.

Jussieu's division of the Cryptogams and Monocotyledons offers much that is satisfactory, if we put the position of the Naiades out of sight. The grouping of the Dicotyledons on the contrary is to a great extent unsuccessful, chiefly owing to the too great importance which he attached to the insertion of the parts of the flowers, that is, to the hypogynous, perigynous, and epigynous arrangement. It is in this grouping of families into classes that the weak side of the system lies; it is utterly artificial, and the task of his successors has been to arrange the families of the Phanerogams, which were most of them well-established, and especially those of the Dicotyledons, in larger natural groups. But this could not be effected, till morphology opened new points of view for systematic botany; Jussieu, as has been already remarked, accepted Linnaeus' views of the morphology of the organs of fructification in Phanerogams, though he introduced many improvements in details. He laid greater stress on the number and relative positions of the different parts of the flower; attention to their insertion on the flowering axis, which he designated as hypogynous, perigynous, and epigynous, would have been a great step in advance, if he had not overrated its systematic value. The morphology of the fruit is very superficial in Jussieu; even the designation of dry indehiscent fruits as naked seeds recurs in his definitions,