404 DIFFICULTIES IN THE 



out the Class of a plant, before we can settle 

 its Order. 



The Linnsean System, however, like all hu- 

 man inventions, has its imperfections and dif- 

 ficulties. If we meet in gardens with double 

 or *monstrous flowers, whose essential organs 

 of fructification are deformed, multiplied, or 

 changed to petals ; or if we find a solitary 

 barren or fertile blossom only ; we must be 

 at a loss, and in such cases could only guess 

 at a new plant from its natural resemblance 

 to some known one. But the principal im- 

 perfection of the System in question consists, 

 not merely in what arises from variations in 

 number or structure among the parts of a 

 flower, against which no system could provide, 

 but in the differences which sometimes occur 

 between the number of Stamens, Styles, &c, 

 in different plants of the same natural genus. 

 Thus, some species of Cerastium have only 4, 

 others 5, Stamens, though the greater part 

 have 10. Lychnis clloica has the Stamens on 

 one plant, the Pistils on another, though the 

 rest of the genus has them united in the same 

 flower ; and there are several similar in- 

 stances ; for number in the parts of fructifica- 



