308 CLASSIFICATION AND DESCRIPTION 



press the resemblances and differences among plants as we 

 find them in nature. 



On the whole, as we have said, these artificial systems 

 served to advance botanical knowledge; although after a 

 while the increasing number of them became a serious burden 

 to all who studied plants. Any system, it was thought, if 

 only used by all, would be much better than having to use 

 so many. 



At last a practical way out of the increasing confusion was 

 found by the clear-sighted Linnaeus who came to the rescue 

 much as he had done in the matter of plant names. 



85. The Linnaean system. The great need for some system 

 which would be used by botanists in general, could, of course, 

 be met only by a classification that was more convenient 

 than any of those already proposed. Linnaeus was the first 

 to see clearly that the necessary convenience could not be 

 expected in his day from any attempt at a natural arrange- 

 ment, for the plants to be arranged were as yet very im- 

 perfectl}^ known. His predecessors had tried to produce a 

 natural classification on an artificial basis, with results that 

 were neither natural nor convenient. He aimed first of all 

 at convenience, and to this end adopted a frankly artificial 

 basis; yet in spite of this, as we shall see, his system proved 

 to be more natural in many ways than any previously pro- 

 posed. 



In the Linnaean system, the old division into herbs and 

 trees was entirely abandoned; all plants were divided into 

 twenty-four "classes," according to the presence, number, 

 or form of certain essential parts (pistils) of the flower; and 

 these classes were so grouped that all flowering plants were 

 separated from those which have no true flowers. The 

 latter constituted Class 24, Cryptogamia ^ or cryptogams, 

 which includes all plants such as seaweeds, mushrooms, 

 mosses, and ferns, that are either destitute of parts such as 

 we find in flowers, or if anything corresponding to such parts 

 are present they are hidden from our unaided sight. The 

 other twenty-three classes include all plants in which floral 

 parts essential to the formation of seed, are manifest, — such 

 ' Cryp-to-ga'-miii < Gr. kyri/ptos, hidden. 



