DIFFICULTIES IN THE 



out the Class of a plant, before we can settle 

 its Order. 



' The Linnaean 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, Styks, &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. Lijc/niis dioica has the Stamens on 

 one plant, the Pistils on another, though the 

 rest of the sfcnus has them united in the same 

 flower; and there are several similar in- 

 stances ; for number in the parts of fructifica- 



