308 DIFFICULTIES 1ST THE LINN^EAN SYSTEM. 



ferences which sometimes occur between the number 

 of Stamens, Styles, &c., in different plants of the same 

 natural genus. Thus, some species of Cerastium have 

 only four, others five, Stamens, though the greater part 

 have ten. Lychnis diolca has the Stamens on one plant, 

 the Pistils on another, though the rest of the genus has 

 them united in the same flower; and there are several 

 similar instances ; for number in the parts of fructifi- 

 cation is no more invariable than other characters, and 

 even more uncercain than such as are founded on in- 

 sertion, or the connexion of one part with another. 

 Against these inconveniences the author of this System 

 has provided an all-sufficient remedy. At the head of 

 every Class and Order, after the genera that properly 

 belong to them, he enumerates, in italics, all the ano- 

 malous species of genera stationed in other places, 

 \vhich, by their own peculiar number of Stamens or 

 Styles, should belong to the Class or Order in question, 

 but which are thus easily found with their brethren by 

 means of the index. 



It is further to be observed, that Linnasus, ever 

 aware of the importance of keeping the natural affini- 

 ties of plants in view, has in each of his artificial 

 Orders, and sections of those Orders, arranged the 

 genera according to those affinities; while at the head 

 of each Class, in his Systema Vegctabilium, he places 

 the same genera according to their technical characters ; 

 thus combining, as far as art can keep pace with nature, 

 the merits of a natural and an artificial system. His 



