The Nineteenth Century closed with the almost unanimous scientific judgment that the order of nature is an order of evolution and development from the more simple to the more complex. In no department of Natural Science is this progressive development more marked or more demonstrable than in the vegetable life of the globe. Systematic Arrangement should logically follow the natural order; and by this method also, as now generally recognized, the best results of study and arrangement are obtained.- The sequence of Families formerly adopted has become incongruous with our present knowledge; and it has for some time past been gradually superseded by truer scientific arrangements in the later works of many authors.

It now seems probable that continued investigation and consideration will again modify the sequence of various groups. Many suggestions in this regard have already appeared in botanical literature; notably, in our own country, those of Professor Charles E. Bessey.

The more simple forms are, in general, distinguished from the more complex, (1) by fewer organs or parts; (2) by the less perfect adaptation of the organs to the purposes they subserve; (3) by the relative degree of development of the more important organs; (4) by the lesser degree of differentiation of the plant-body or of its organs; (5) by considerations of antiquity, as indicated by the geological record; (6) by a consideration of the phenomena of embryogeny. Thus, the Pteridophyta, which do not produce seeds and which appeared on the earth in Silurian time, are simpler than the Spermatophyta; the Gymnospermae in which the ovules are borne on the face of a scale, and which are known from the Devonian period onward, are simpler than the Angiospermae, whose ovules are borne in a closed cavity, and which are unknown before the Jurassic.

In the Angiospermae the simpler types are those whose floral structure is nearest the structure of the branch or stem from which the flower has been metamorphosed, that is to say, in which the parts of the flower (modified leaves) are more nearly separate or distinct from each other, the leaves of any stem or branch being normally separated, while those are the most complex whose floral parts are most united. These principles are applied to the arrangement of the Subclasses Monocotyledones and Dicotyledones independently, the Mono-cotyledones being usually regarded as the simpler, as shown by the less degree of differentiation of their tissues, though their floral structure is not so very different nor their antiquity much greater, so far as present information goes. For these reasons it is considered that Typhaceae are the simplest of the Monocotyledones, and Orchidaceae the most complex; Saururaceae the simplest family of Dicotyledones in our area, and Compositae the most complex

Inasmuch as evolution has not always been progressive, but some groups, on the contrary, have clearly been developed by degradation from more highly organized ones, and other groups have been produced by divergence along more than one line from the parent stock, no linear consecutive sequence can, at all points, truly represent the actual lines of descent.