LINN^AN MEMORIAL ADDRESS 269 



oldest and most experienced systematists of Europe, a perfect 

 marvel on account of the readiness with which he could solve 

 for them some of their most perplexing taxonomic puzzles. I 

 can not stop to cite more than a single instance. In one of the 

 larger Dutch herbaria, tiiere was a rare specimen of the leaves 

 and flowers of a certain oriental tree. The bark of this kind of 

 tree had been known in Europe as a commercial importation 

 for, I think, some 2,000 years. * They called it cinnamon. As 

 a generic type the tree had been named in Latin Cmnamomum. 

 The professor gave Linnii^us the information that these were the 

 leaves and flowers of tlie cinnamon tree ; but what were the 

 natural affinities of the tree? Had it consanguinity with any 

 other known tree? To what was it related? These were 

 questions which not the most expert botanists could answer. 

 The fruit of the tree was not yet known, and therefore could 

 not be appealed to. The flowers were small and insignificant. 

 Linnaeus took one of those small dried-up flowers, subjected it 

 to moisture, so that he could get a view of the anthers without 

 breaking them, then, looking at these alone, was able to answer, 

 with the most perfect assurance, that this cinnamon tree is a very 

 near relative of the familiar sweet bay of southern Europe ; a 

 species of the genus Latwtis. The man's frequent solving of 

 enigmas like this, in the presence of the most learned and cap- 

 able botanists of the world, brought it to pass that he was 

 spoken of everywhere among the Germans and Flemish, as the 

 little oracle ; for when he gave a decision about the affinity of 

 any imperfectly known plant, he was admitted to be correct. It 

 was as if an oracle had spoken. These brilliant pronounce- 

 ment must also have prepared the way for that great success 

 which his publications met with, and that ready adoption of his 

 new system which followed almost ever^'^wher^ despite its char- 

 acter as radical and revolutionary. 



If, then, Linnceus, at the time when he began publishing the 

 fundamentals of his new system occupied a place wholly unique 

 among botanists then living as to knowledge and understanding 

 of floral structures of all kinds, so that the oldest and ablest 

 among them stood in speechless admiration of his superlative 

 attainments, there was forthwith exerted by him a most salutary 



