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CHAPTER XXIII.
EXPLANATION OF THE LINNÆAN ARTIFICIAL SYSTEM.
The Linnæan System is, as I have already observed, professedly artificial. Its sole aim is to help any one to learn the name and history of an unknown plant in the most easy and certain manner, by first determining its Class and Order in this system; after which its Genus is to be made out by comparing the parts of fructification with all the generic characters of that Order; and finally its Species, by examining all the specific definitions of the Genus. We thus ascertain the generic and specific name of our plant in Linnæus, and under those we find an enumeration, more or less ample, of its Synonyms, or the different appellations it has received from other writers, with a reference to figures in
