A STUDENT AT UPSAL. 
si 
Tournefort, the professor of Vaillant, had been the greatest 
systematical botanist. This man founded the system of division upon the 
form and quality of the llower or blossom, a side from which French* 
men are apt to consider many things ; and his method was predominant 
at that epoch. 
By some lucky incident a small work of Vaillant on the struc- 
ture of flowers, fell into the hands of Linn/Eus*. Till now he had 
examined the plants by their bloom, according to Tournefort’s sys- 
tem ; but without granting implicit faith to the received usage and autho- 
rity, he directed his attention and enquiries on the remaining parts of the 
plants, especially on their generative parts, the stamina and pistilla, 
which had, to that Very hour, been considered as insignificant. The 
flowers contain threads with a head at the top, comn nly called the 
stamina , on which reposes a dust bag. The latter contains a floury dust, 
which, in point of its destination is very analogous to the male seed of 
animals. In the middle we generally find protuberances, which are 
frequently jagged and glutinous in the upper part. These are the pis- 
tilla , or dust-ways, which, with the stamina , or dust-threads , are the most 
essential when a plant is to bear fruit. If the fruit is to turn out well, 
the dust must fall out of the bag from the stamina or dust-threads on 
the cicatrice or jagg, by which the falsification is effeSed. The sta- 
mina or dust- threads are therefore the male, and the pistilla or dust- 
ways the female parts of plants. 
* Vaillant’s Sermo de Strufiura Florurn, Lugd. Batav. 171*. 
The 
