g6 Artificial Systems and Terminology of 



relations of organs he was followed by botanists till late into 

 our own century. 



Linnaeus goes far beyond his predecessors in distinguishing 

 and naming the organs of fructification, the subject of the 

 fourth chapter of the ' Philosophia Botanica.' The fructi- 

 fication, he says, is a temporary part in plants devoted to 

 propagation, terminating the old and beginning the new. He 

 distinguishes the following seven parts : (i) the calyx, which 

 represents the rind, including in this term the involucre of 

 the Umbelliferae, the spathe, the calyptra of Mosses, and even 

 the volva of certain Fungi, another instance of the way in 

 which Linnaeus was guided by external appearance in his 

 terminology of the parts of plants ; (2) the corolla, which 

 represents the inner rind (bast) of the plant ; (3) the stamen, 

 which produces the pollen ; (4) the pistil, which is attached to 

 the fruit and receives the pollen; here for the first time the 

 ovary, style, and stigma are clearly distinguished. But next 

 conies as a special organ (5) the pericarp, the ovary which 

 contains the seed. As bulbs and buds were treated not simply 

 as young shoots, but as separate organs, so here too the ripe 

 fruit is regarded not merely as the developed ovary, but as 

 a special organ. Nevertheless, Linnaeus distinguishes the 

 different forms of fruit much better than his predecessors had 

 done. (6) The seed is a part of the plant that falls off from it, 

 the rudiment of a new plant, and it is excited to active life by 

 the pollen. The treatment of the seed and its parts is the 

 feeblest of all Linnaeus' efforts ; he follows Cesalpino, but his 

 account of the parts of the seed is much more imperfect than 

 that of Cesalpino and his successors. The embryo is called 

 the ' corculum,' and two parts are distinguished in it, the ' plu- 

 mula ' and the ' rostellum ' (radicle). The cotyledon is co-ordi- 

 nated with the ' corculum,' and is regarded therefore not as part 

 of the embryo but as a distinct organ of the seed ; it is defined 

 as ' corpus laterale seminis bibulum caducum.' Nothing could 

 be worse, and it seems almost incredible that so bad a defini- 



