248 FUNCTIONS OF 



in 1720 published his Anthologia, quite on the other 

 side of the question. 



Linnaeus, towards the year 1732, reviewed all that had 

 been done before him, and clearly established the fact 

 so long in dispute, in his Fundamenta and Philosophia 

 Botanica. He determined the functions of the Stamens 

 and Pistils, proved these organs to be essential to every 

 plant, and thence conceived the happy idea of using 

 them for the purpose of systematical arrangement. In 

 the latter point his merit was altogether original ; in the 

 former he made use of the discoveries and remarks of 

 others, but set them in so new and clear a light, as in a 

 manner to render them his own. 



We have already mentioned, />. 121, the two modes 

 by which plants are multiplied, and have shown the im- 

 portant difference between them. Propagation by seed 

 is the only genuine reproduction of the species, and it 

 now remains to prove that the essential organs of the 

 flower are indispensably requisite for the perfecting of 

 the seed. 



Every one must have observed that the flower of a 

 plant always precedes its fruit. To this the Meadow 

 Saffron, Engl. Bot. t. 133, seems an objection, the fruit 

 and leaves being perfected in the spring, the blossoms 

 not appearing till autumn ; but a due examination will 

 readily ascertain that the seed-bud formed in autumn is 

 the very same which comes to maturity in the following 

 spring. A Pine-apple was once very unexpectedly ci- 

 ted to me as an instance of fruit being formed before the 

 flower, because the green fruit in that instance, as in 

 many others, is almost fully grown before the flowers ex- 



