54 CAROLUS LINNAEUS 



in France, the native land of Tournefort, they 

 were superseded by the system of Linnaeus. 



To the botanists present who are unread 

 in the history of our science, nothing will be 

 more surprising than the information that, 

 with the great Tournefort, who founded upon 

 the flower the most universally approved 

 system of botany which up to that time 

 had been presented, the flower was hardly 

 anything more than we know as the corolla. 

 Of the functions of stamens, stigmas and 

 styles he was ignorant, confessed his ignor- 

 ance, and regarded them as wholly insig- 

 nificant things, hardly to be seriously taken 

 note of. The flower and the corolla were with 

 him almost synonymous; and yet so uncer- 

 tain was he in his identification of the corolla 

 that where, as in all the Aracese, it is absent 

 he took the spathe for the corolla; while in 

 such apetalous things as the castor bean, 

 he regarded the brightly colored stigmas as 

 the corolla. Such extremely crude ideas of 

 floral structure were those of Tournefort to 

 the end of his career; and he died when the 

 infant Linnaeus was one and one half years 

 old. 



Now the Linnsean doctrine of the flower 

 and that of Tournefort represent opposite 



