62 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



When raised to the nobility Linneus had become sufficiently 

 wealthy to purchase an estate in the neighbourhood of Upsal. 

 He was elected a member of all the learned societies of 

 Europe, and many honours were conferred upon him for his 

 scientific acquirements. 



He died in 1777, and his remains were deposited in a 

 vault in the cathedral of Upsal. His obsequies were 

 performed in the most respectful manner by the whole 

 university, the pall being supported by sixteen doctors of 

 medicine, all of whom had been his pupils. There was a 

 general mourning at Upsal, and the king of Sweden caused 

 a medal to be struck expressive of the public loss, and 

 alluded to the subject in a speech from the throne. The 

 system of classification invented by Linneus, together with 

 the great improvement he made in botanical nomenclature, 

 have served to greatly popularize the study of Botany; what 

 was before chaos he brought into order, and what was before 

 difficult he made easy. His system of classification, based 

 on the number or position of the stamens and pistils, serves 

 admirably to guide the learner to the name of a plant that 

 he may wish to determine ; though as a scientific arrange- 

 ment of the vegetable kingdom it is worth nothing, plants 

 being arranged side by side that have nothing in common 

 beyond this trivial coincidence of two sets of organs. Thus 

 in the class and order Triandria Monogynia (three stamens 

 and one pistil) we find Valerian, Bryonj^, Butcher's Broom, 

 Iris, Sedges ; and these incongruities follow the system in a 

 great measure throughout, though in a few instances— as 

 for example the class Tedradynamia, which is equivalent to 

 the natural order Crucifer£e — this objection is not met with. 

 But no general system of Botany could be permanently 

 established, or be even temporarily satisfactory, which 

 depends for its distinctions on one or two organs, or sets of 

 organs only ; and Linneus would seem to have been aware 



