BOTANICAL REFORM. 
95 
from giving proper attendance to Clif fort’s garden, and receiving 
tile frequent visits of strangers from Leyden and Harlem. 
The Genera Plantarum was the first work of Linnjeus, which made 
its appearance after his return from England , in the beginning of 1737? 
and in the. completion of which he had spent the last months of the 
preceding year. It was published at Leyden on 384 pages in o&avo. 
He limited in it the chara&ers of the genera of plants, accord- 
ing to the number, form, situation and proportion of their generative 
parts, re&ified the names of the genera by those distin&ive marks 
which were always true to nature, and applicable to any system which 
might have been adopted for the limitation of the classes and orders. 
Had he not done this,, such a change would only have created mere 
confusion and disorder. Having thus applied proper names to the 
genera, he also began to alter the names of most of the species. Lin- 
naeus, according to his own assertion, had till then, examined the 
characters of near 8000 plants. The labour and extent of such cir- 
cumstantial researches at such an age as his, deserve reflexion. Upon 
the whole, he had described in the above work, upwards of 935 
genera of plants. This number was afterwards augmented by one 
half in the eleven different editions, with his own and foreign addi- 
tions. In the same year he published a supplement to it, (Corollarium 
Generum) in which he described 60 new genera. To this he also added 
a concise view of die sexual system (Metliodus Sexualis). Linnaeus, 
as we had occasion to observe before, had already inserted after his 
return from Lapland, a concise list of the plants of this extensive Nor- 
thern region in the transa&ions of the royal society of Upsal. In the 
month of April 1737* a precise description of them appeared at Am- 
3 sterdam 
