60 CAROLUS LINNMUS 



plant in hand for determination, makes his 

 final appeal to stamens and pistils. These, 

 by peculiarities of structure, will tell the 

 plant's relationship in many an instance, both 

 promptly and decisively. In this procedure, 

 every botanist who lives is distinctly a disciple 

 of Linnaeus; for he, putting Vaillant's prin- 

 ciples into taxonomic practice, first inaugurated 

 the method, and eventually brought to pass 

 its universal recognition and its permanent 

 establishment. When in the year 1735, with 

 those manuscripts of his new botanical system, 

 Linnaeus went to Germany and Holland, he 

 had now for seven years been scrutinizing 

 carefully and industriously the stamens of 

 everything that had come to hand. By dint 

 of those seven years of industrious investiga- 

 tion of these organs he had not only become 

 very expert in this line, but he was the only 

 man in the world who knew anything about 

 the morphology of stamens. He was now 

 to the oldest and most experienced system- 

 atists of Europe a perfect marvel on account 

 of the readiness with which he could solve 

 for them some of their most perplexing taxo- 

 nomic puzzles. I can not stop to cite more 

 than a single instance. In one of the larger 

 Dutch herbaria there was a" rare specimen 



