- De Fruticibus.
Genus i. Bacciferi sempervirentes: e.g. Vaccinium, Ruscus, Hedera, Viscum, Juniperus. " ii. "foliis deciduis, non spinosi: e.g. Vitis, Lonicera, Cornus, Sambucus. " iii. "foliis deciduis, spinosi: Crataegus sp., Ribes sp., Rosa, Berberis, &c. " iv. Seminibus nudis, aut vasculis siccis inclusis: e.g. Vitex, Rhus, Spiraea, Erica. " v. Floribus papilionaceis: e.g. Acacia, Genista, Cytisus, Colutea. " vi. Suffrutiscentes: a miscellaneous collection of species.
A comparison between the classification of the Methodus Nova and that of the Tables of Plants shows that whilst he left the Trees and the Shrubs almost unaltered, Ray remodelled his arrangement of the Herbs. Whereas, in the Tables, he had proceeded along three distinct lines of classification indicated by the characters of leaf, flower, and seed-vessel respectively, all regarded as equally important; in the Methodus, the leaf-character is subordinated to those of flower and fruit, and these are not kept distinct but are combined; a fundamental change of principle which is no doubt to be attributed to Morison's criticisms on the Tables. As Ray put it in his Preface: Methodus haec differentials sumit a similitudine et convenientia partium praecipuarum, radicis puta, floris et ejus calicis, seminis ejusque conceptaculi. The result is that many of the sub-divisions consist of groups of plants which are really natural, the precursors of several of the recognized Natural Orders of Phanerogams; such as Polygonaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Compositae, Umbelliferae, Rubiaceae, Boraginaceae, Labiatae, Cucurbitaceae, Scrophulariaceae, Cruciferae, Leguminosae, Gramineae. The principles adopted were capable of yielding even better results, had they been more rigorously applied and had the investigation of the plants been more minute. For instance, in genera xxi and xxii, with a little more attention to floral characters, the Ranunculaceous might have been separated from the Rosaceous genera, and all of them from the Malvaceae: similarly in genera xxvi—xxviii, the Scrophulariaceous, and possibly also the Campanulaceous genera, might have been segregated. One of the principal achievements is the recognition of the group Stellatae (Rubia-
