A similar arrangement is found in Dalechamps[14]; that of Dodoens in his ‘Pemptades’ is more perplexed and unnatural; but the design in both of them is evidently much the same as that of de l’Écluse. This design is best seen from the introductory observations to each book; de l’Écluse, for instance, says at page 127, ‘Having treated of the history of trees, shrubs, and undershrubs, and put these together in the preceding book, we will now in this second book describe such plants as have a bulbous or tuberous root, many of which attract and delight the eyes of all persons in an extraordinary degree by the elegance and variety of their flowers, and which therefore ought not to have the lowest place assigned to them among garland-plants (‘inter coronarias’). We will begin with the plants of the lily kind, on account of their size and the beauty of their flowers, etc. etc.‘ The introductions to the several books of the ‘Pemptades’ of Dodoens are more learned and more diffuse. It is plain that the composers of these works had no thought of arranging their matter on the principles of a true natural system, but were only anxious to give some kind of order to their descriptions of individual plants. Hence their divisions do not appear under the names of classes and subdivisions (‘genera majora et minora,’ as they would have been called at that time), but they are sections of the whole work kept as symmetrical as was possible. If we would discover in these works whatever may really lay claim to systematic value, we must not rely on the sections as they are typographically distinguished, but must observe within each of them the order in which the plants are given, and then it becomes apparent that within the frame once established forms naturally allied are, as far as may be, grouped together. For instance, we find in the second book of de l’Écluse’s work first of all a long list of true Liliaceae and Asphodeleae, Melanthaceae, and Irideae described in unbroken succession; then comes Calamus, and then without any explanation a number of the Ranunculaceae, among which the genera Ranunculus and Anemone are very well distinguished; but then follows the genus Cyclamen with several species, and next a number of Orchideae, in the middle of which appear Orobanche and Corydalis, followed by Helleborus niger, Veratrum album, Polygonatum, and others. So it is in the other sections, though in general the species of a genus stand together, and even the genera of a family are not unfrequently united; but with all this there are no proper breaks, because other considerations are perpetually disturbing the feeling for natural relationship. The descriptions of de l’Écluse are generally commended, and they deserve to be commended for their fulness of detail and their attention to the structure of the flowers, though he, like de l’Obel and Dodoens, describes the leaves more minutely than any other part of the plant.