THE PARTS OF A FLOWER. 235 



arranged under the Linnaean mode of classification, 

 it may be thought necessary here to give a brief 

 account of those parts of the flower on which this 

 classification depends, and also a list of the classes 

 ^themselves. 



Before the time of Linnaeus, the study of botany 

 was involved in the greatest obscurity, from the 

 utter want of regularity in the various systems which 

 had been propounded by philosophers. The great 

 Swedish Naturalist undertook to remove this diffi- 

 culty, and devised a new mode of classification, 

 which, though arbitrary, and in some respects defec- 

 tive, is certainly the most generally approved of any 

 which have hitherto appeared. Linnseus made his 

 system to depend upon the part of a plant necessary 

 to propagation; namely, the stamens and pistils. 

 On this plan he divided the vegetable world into 

 twenty-four classes ; the first thirteen of which de- 

 pend upon the number of stamens, and derive their 

 names from two Greek words, the latter of which, 

 Andria, means husband, and refers to the stamen 

 itself, while the former expresses the number of sta- 

 mens of which the class is composed, thus : — 



