LINN^EAN SYSTEM. 405 



lion is no more invariable than other charac- 

 ters, and even more uncertain than such as 

 are founded on insertion, or the connexion of 

 one part with another. Against these incon- 

 veniences the author of this System has pro- 

 vided an all-sufficient remedy. At the head 

 of every Class and Order, after the genera 

 which properly belong to them, he enume- 

 rates, in italics, all the anomalous species of 

 genera stationed in other places, that, by 

 their own peculiar number of Stamens or 

 Styles, should belong to the Class or Order 

 in question, but which are thus easily found 

 with their brethren by means of the index. 



It is further to be observed that Linnaeus, 

 ever aware of the importance of keeping the 

 natural affinities of plants in view, has in each 

 of his artificial Orders, and sections of those 

 Orders, arranged the genera according to 

 those affinities ; while at the head of each 

 Class, in his Sy sterna VcgetabUium, he places 

 the same genera according to their technical 

 characters ; thus combining, as far as art can 

 keep pace with nature, the merits of a natural 

 and an artificial system. His editors have 

 seldom been aware of this ; and Murray 



