268 GREENE 



flower exhibited five stamens the phint was sure to belong to 

 some genus of Linnasus's Class V. If the same flower showed 

 also two pistils, that indicate as unmistakably Order 2 of Class V. 

 No other system of plant classification ever invented made the 

 beginnings of botany so easy ; no other ever was so immensely 

 popular. But, what is much more to the credit of the Linnjean 

 classes and orders than the popular applause with which they 

 once were hailed, is the fact that the determination of plants 

 under them necessitated close inspection of all, even the min- 

 utest and obscurest parts of every floral structure ; trusting that 

 in these minute, obscure and hitherto neglected organs there 

 would be found some of the very best indexes of affinity. This 

 line of investigation, so important to all taxonomy, Linnaeus was 

 the very first to carry into practice and make universal. It will 

 be difficult to bring the average botanist of to-day to a realiza- 

 tion of how great an epoch in botany Linnaeus created when he 

 began examining the stamens of every plant, with the purpose 

 of ascertaining into what one of his 24 proposed classes of 

 flowering plants each generic type must fall. And though it 

 be true that the classes and orders of Linnaeus fell into disuse 

 three-quarters of a century ago, it is true to-day that every 

 botanist, from the mere beginner in taxonomy to the most ac- 

 complished master of it, if he have a new and unknown plant 

 in hand for determination, makes his final appeal to stamens 

 and pistils. These, by peculiarities of structure, will tell the 

 plant's relationship in many an instance, both promptly and de- 

 cisively. In this procedure, every botanist who lives is distinctly 

 a disciple of Linnaeus ; for he, putting Vaillant's principles into 

 taxonomic practice, first inaugurated the method, and eventually 

 brought to pass its universal recognition and its permanent 

 establishment. When in the year 1735, with those manuscripts 

 of his new botanical system, Linnaeus went to Germany and 

 Holland, he had now for seven years been scrutinizing carefully 

 and industriously the stamens of everything that had come to 

 hand. By dint of those seven years of industrious investiga- 

 tion of these organs he had not only become a very expert in 

 this line, but he was the on]}'- man in the world who knew any- 

 thing about the morphology of stamens. He was now, to the 



