CAROLUS LINNAEUS 63 



even more clearly defined by his few descrip- 

 tive 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 Linnseus 

 surpassed immeasurably every author who 

 had preceded him in the practice of generic 

 diagnosis was that he had all their under- 

 standing and appreciation of calyx, corolla 

 and fruit, and added to that his mastery of 

 stamens, stigmas and styles, the very names 

 of which were unknown to the generations 

 that had preceded him, and hardly yet known 

 to the most celebrated of his contemporaries. 

 In the later editions of the Genera Plantarum 

 no improvement is to be noted in his diag- 

 noses. They were models as he gave them out 

 at first, at least as viewed from the stand- 

 point of Linnseus's acknowledged greater 

 master, Csesalpino. They are still essentially 

 the models of generic disgnosis with all who 

 still hold the CaBsalpinian doctrine that flower 

 and fruit are to supply the only recognized 

 data for the establishment of classes and genera 

 of plants. Even George Bentham, who lived 

 more than a century after the time of Linnseus, 

 and was the supreme master of generic diag- 

 nosis that the nineteenth century knew, was 



