208 EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. FT. ni. 



scented flower.' This, you will see, was extremely incon- 

 venient ; it was as if all the children in a family were called 

 only by their father's name, and you were obliged to describe 

 each particular child every time you mentioned him ; as 

 'Smith with the dark hair,' or 'Smith with the long nose and 

 short fingers,' etc. A botanist named Rivinus had suggested 

 in 1690 that two names should be given to plants, and 

 Linnaeus was the first to act upon this idea and to give a 

 specific, or, as he called it, trivial name to each par- 

 ticular kind of plant, describing the plant at the same 

 time so accurately that any one who found it could decide at 

 once to what species it belonged. To accomplish this he 

 classified all plants, chiefly according to the number and 

 arrangement of their stamens and pistils (or the pollen-bear- 

 ing and seed-bearing parts), and then he subdivided them 

 by the character and position of their leaves and other parts. 

 In describing the geranium, for example, he mentions 

 first the * sepals,' or little green leaves under the flower ; he 

 says they are five, and very pointed ; then the ' petals,' or 

 flower-leaves, are five also, growing on the sepals and 

 heart-shaped ; the ' stamens ' are ten in number, and grow 

 separate ; the little vessels on the top of the stamens, which 

 are called ' anthers,' and hold the yellow dust, are oblong ; 

 the 'pistil,' or seed-vessel, is formed of five paits, which 

 are joined together into one long beak ending in five points ; 

 the seeds are covered with a skin and are shaped like a 

 kidney, having often a long tip which is rolled round in a 

 spiral (like a corkscrew). Here we have a definition of 

 the genus geranium ; but many geraniums will answer to 

 this description, so he goes on to describe some more 

 special characters. The sepals in this particular specimen, 

 he says, are joined together in one piece ; the stem of the 

 plant is woody, the joints are fleshy, the leaves are slightly 



