The monopetalous may be regular or irregular; so may the tetrapetalous. The regular tetrapetalous flowers are, for example, the Cruciferæ, as Stock and Cauliflower: the irregular, are the papilionaceous plants, Peas, Beans, and Vetches; and thus we again come to natural families. The remaining plants are divided in the same way, into those with imperfect, and those with perfect, flowers. Those with imperfect flowers are the Grasses, the Rushes (Junci), and the like; among those with perfect flowers, are the Palmacea, and the Liliacea.

We see that the division of plants is complete as a system; all flowers must belong to one or other of the divisions. Fully to explain the characters and further subdivisions of these families, would be to write a treatise on botany; but it is easily seen that they exhaust the subject as far as they go.

Thus Ray constructed his system partly on the fruit and partly on the flower; or more properly, according to the expression of Linnæus, comparing his earlier with his later system, he began by being a fructicist, and ended by being a corollist.45

As we have said, a number of systems of arrangement of plants were published about this time, some founded on the fruit, some on the corolla, some on the calyx, and these employed in various ways. Rivinus 46 (whose real name was Bachman,) classified by the flower alone; instead of combining it with the fruit, as Ray had done.47 He had the further merit, of being the first who rejected the old division, of woody, and herbaceous plants; a division which, though at variance with any system founded upon the structure of the plant, was employed even by Tournefort, and only finally expelled by Linnæus.

It would throw little light upon the history of

45 Ray was a most industrious quainted with books than with herbalizer, and I cannot under- plants. stand on what ground Mirbel asserts, (Physiol. Veg., tom. ii. p. 531,) that he was better ac

46 Cuv. Leçons, 491.

47 Historia Generalis ad rem Herbariam, 1690.

botany, especially for our purpose, to dwell on the peculiarities of these transitory systems. Linnæus, 18 after his manner, has given a classification of them. Rivinus, as we have just seen, was a corollist, according to the regularity and number of the petals; Hermann was a fructicist. Christopher Knaut +9 adopted the system of Ray, but inverted the order of its parts; Christian Kuaut did nearly the same with regard to that of Rivinus, taking number before regularity in the flower.50

Of the systems which prevailed previous to that of Linnæus, Tournefort's was by far the most generally accepted. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort was of a noble family in Provence, and was appointed professor at the Jardin du Roi in 1683. His well-known travels in the Levant are interesting on other subjects, as well as botany. His Institutio Rei Herbaria, published in 1700, contains his method, which is that of a corollist. He is guided by the regularity or irregularity of the flowers, by their form, and by the situation of the receptacle of the seeds below the calyx, or within it. Thus his classes are-t -those in which the flowers are campaniform, or bell-shaped; those in which they are infundibuliform, or funnel-shaped, as Tobacco; then the irregular flowers, as the Personata, which resemble an ancient mask; the Labiata, with their two lips; the Cruciform; the Rosacea, with flowers like a rose; the Umbelliferæ; the Caryophyllea, as the Pink; the Liliaceae, with six petals, as the Tulip, Narcissus, Hyacinth, Lily; the Papilionacea, which are leguminous plants, the flower of which resembles a butterfly, as Peas and Beans; and finally, the Anomalous, as Violet, Nasturtium, and others.

Though this system was found to be attractive, as depending, in an evident way, on the most conspicuous part of the plant, the flower, it is easy to see that it was much less definite than systems like that of Rivinus, Hermann, and Ray, which were governed by number. But Tournefort succeeded in giving to the

48 Philos. Bot. p. 21. 49 Enumeratio Plantarum, &c., 1687.

50 Linn.

characters of genera a degree of rigour never before attained, and abstracted them in a separate form. We have already seen that the reception of botanical Systems has depended much on their arrangement into Genera.

Tournefort's success was also much promoted by the author inserting in his work a figure of a flower and fruit belonging to each genus; and the figures, drawn by Aubriet, were of great merit. The study of botany was thus rendered easy, for it could be learned by turning over the leaves of a book. In spite of various defects, these advantages gave this writer an ascendancy which lasted, from 1700, when his book appeared, for more than half a century. For though Linnæus began to publish in 1735, his method and his nomenclature were not generally adopted till 1760.

CHAPTER IV.

THE REFORM OF LINNEUS.

Sect. 1.-Introduction of the Reform.

ALTHOUGH, perhaps, no

man of science ever

exercised a greater sway than Linnæus, or had more enthusiastic admirers, the most intelligent botanists always speak of him, not as a great discoverer, but as a judicious and strenuous Reformer. Indeed, in his own lists of botanical writers, he places himself among the Reformatores;' and it is apparent that this is the nature of his real claim to admiration; for the doctrine of the sexes of plants, even if he had been the first to establish it, was a point of botanical physiology, a province of the science which no one would select as the peculiar field of Linnæus's glory; and the formation of a system of arrangement on the basis of this doctrine, though attended with many advantages, was not an improvement of any higher order than those introduced by Ray and Tournefort. But as a Reformer of the state of Natural History in his time, Linnæus was admirable for his skill, and unparalleled in his success. And we have already seen, in the instance of the reform of mineralogy, as attempted by Mohs and Berzelius, that men of great talents and knowledge may fail in such an undertaking.

It is, however, only by means of the knowledge which he displays, and of the beauty and convenience of the improvements which he proposes, that any one can acquire such an influence as to procure his suggestions to be adopted. And even if original circumstances of birth or position could invest any one with peculiar prerogatives and powers in the republic of science, Karl Linné began his career with no such

advantages. His father was a poor curate in Smaland, a province of Sweden; his boyhood was spent in poverty and privation; it was with great difficulty that, at the age of twenty-one, he contrived to subsist at the University of Upsal, whither a strong passion for natural history had urged him. Here, however, he was so far fortunate, that Olaus Rudbeck, the professor of botany, committed to him the care of the Botanic Garden.1 The perusal of the works of Vaillant and Patrick Blair suggested to him the idea of an arrangement of plants, formed upon the sexual organs, the stamens and pistils; and of such an arrangement he published a sketch in 1731, at the age of twenty-four.

But we must go forwards a few years in his life, to come to the period to which his most important works belong. University and family quarrels induced him. to travel; and, after various changes of scene, he was settled in Holland, as the curator of the splendid botanical garden of George Clifford, an opulent banker. Here it was2 that he laid the foundation of his future greatness. In the two years of his residence at Harlecamp, he published nine works. The first, the Systema Nature, which contained a comprehensive sketch of the whole domain of Natural History, excited general astonishment, by the acuteness of the observations, the happy talent of combination, and the clearness of the systematic views. Such a work could not fail to procure considerable respect for its author. His Hortus Cliffortiana and Musa Cliffortiana added to this impression. The weight which he had thus acquired, he proceeded to use for the improvement of botany. His Fundamenta Botanica and Bibliotheca Botanica appeared in 1736; his Critica Botanica and Genera Plantarum in 1737: his Classes Plantarum in 1738; his Species Plantarum was not published till 1753; and all these works appeared in many successive editions, materially modified.

This circulation of his works showed that his labours

Sprengel, ii. 232.

2 Ibid. 234.

VOL. III.

S