LINNHZAN ADDRESS—GREENE. 707 
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 
there was a rare specimen of the leaves and flowers of a certain ori- 
ental 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 Cinnamomum. The professor gave Linneus the information 
that these were the leaves and flowers of the 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. Linnzus 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 Zaurus. The man’s frequent 
solving of enigmas like this, in the presence of the most learned and 
capable 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 pronouncements 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 every- 
where, despite its character as radical and revolutionary. 
If, then, Linnzus, at the time when he began publishing the funda- 
mentals 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 influence upon the 
important art of plant description. The revolution which he at 
once brought about in the art of generic diagnosis was perhaps the 
most priceless of his several strong contributions to phytography. 
In his Genera Plantarum of the year 1737 every genus is so well 
characterized in words that plates and figures illustrating them are 
not needed. The group which Linneus takes for a genus is even 
more clearly defined by his few descriptive sentences than is a genus 
of Tournefort, in which the defects of its description are eked out 
by a fine quarto plate representing the type. And the reason why 
