( 219 ) 
neus has torn it from all it's natural connco 
tions, and placed it amongft a tribe of plants, 
in the clafs Polygamia, to which it has no 
affinity. His mo ft flagrant faults, however, of 
which this muft be efteemed one, admit of this 
excufe, namely, the greatnefs of the work, 
with which he has enlightend the botanical 
world. We ought to be lefs furprifed, that 
we find in it a few imperfections, than that 
there are not more. This regarding the 
liolcus may probably have efcaped, by fome 
accident, his correction, as it is not uncom- 
mon to find the fame imperfection in the 
flowers triticum and hordeum, wheat and 
barley, and fome other graffes, which cannot 
be confidered as conftant, but may arife from 
a variety of caufes : and, as the character of 
the claffes is purely arbitrary, it may admit of 
a doubt, whether in all cafes it would not 
have been better to have obfcrved it uni-* 
formly, than ever to have deviated from it. 
So, for inftance, the genus anthoxanthum, which 
in every particular agrees with the character 
of the grafs tribe, except that of it's number 
of ftamens, which are only two, and that 
without variation. From this circumftance 
Linneus has placed it in the clafs Diandria, 
two- 
