"quod nullum semen molitur" (De Plantis, p. 591): but he had added, in the same paragraph,—"ferunt enim in folio quid, quod vicem seminis gerit, ut Filix et quae illi affinia sunt." It is a question if Morison was much nearer the truth than Cesalpino.
It is in the preface of his Plantarum Umbelliferarum Distributio Nova (1672) that Morison first gave a definite statement of the principles of his method, in the following terms: "Cumque methodus sit omnis doctrinae anima: idcirco nos tarn in hac umbelliferarum dispositione, quam in universali omnium stirpium digestione, quam pollicemur, notas genericas et essentiales a seminibus eorumque similitudine petitas, per tabulas cognationis et affinitatis disponentes stirpes exhibebimus. Differentias autem specificas a partibus ignobilioribus, scilicet radice, foliis et caulibus, odore, sapore, colore desumptas adscribemus, singulis generibus singulas accersendo species: ita species diversa facie cognoscibiles, sub generibus intermediis: genera intermedia sub supremis, notis suis essentialibus et semper eodem modo sese habentibus distincta militabunt. Hic est ordo a natura ipsa stirpibus ab initio datus, a me primo jam observatus."
It is not necessary to discuss in detail the merits of Morison's work on the Umbelliferae. It will suffice to say that it was published as a specimen of the great Historia that he had in preparation—trigesimam operis quod intendimus partem—so that the learned world might have some idea of what they were to expect from the completed work "quemadmodum aiunt ex ungue leonem"; and further, that it was the first monograph of a definite group of plants, and is remarkable for the sense of relationship between the genera that inspires it. The Umbelliferae constituted Sectio IX among the fifteen sections in which Morison distributed herbaceous plants.
At length, in 1680, appeared the Pars Secunda of the Plantarum Historia Universalis Oxoniensis in which work Morison's long-expected method of classification was to be exhibited and justified. However in this respect it proved to be disappointing: partly because it was so limited in its scope, dealing with but five of his fifteen Sectiones of herbaceous plants: and partly because it did not contain any complete outline of his system. It is most singular that, although he wrote so much, Morison
