Heroes of science : $b Botanists, zoologists, and geologists — John Shaqi
Heroes of science : $b Botanists, zoologists, and geologistsDuncan, P. Martin (Peter Martin)
History
Heroes of science : $b Botanists, zoologists, and geologists
Duncan, P. Martin (Peter Martin)
Naturalists
The next part of the classification refers to orders which are
subdivisions of classes. The orders of the first thirteen classes,
mentioned above, are founded on the number of styles (or of stigmas if
these are absent), and the names given, relate to the number and the term
gynia, or female.
Thus the order monogynia includes plants of all the thirteen classes that
have only one style to each flower, such as the primrose; and so on,
until polygynia, or “many female”—plants of such an order, having more
than twelve styles, like the rose and clematis.
One class has a very important division into two orders, one of which
has naked and the other covered seeds; another has orders from the
shape of the fruit or pod. Linnæus divided the cryptogamia into six
orders—the ferns, mosses, liverworts, lichens, fungi, and seaweeds. There
is no doubt that this classification enables the name of a plant to be
discovered, if it has been properly described and named, very easily,
and it added to the facilities of classificatory botany. But it did not
bring plants having many other and very important characters together,
and it separated many which are closely allied by similar structures.
It was and is called the artificial system. It was not a natural
classification like that foreshadowed by Ray. The careful distinction
of the sexes of plants was, of course, the foundation of the system, and
to that Linnæus paid great attention. Writing a little treatise on the
subject, he showed it to Celsius, who communicated it to Dr. Rudbeck.
This man, free from the usual jealousy of the age, took Linnæus as his
assistant, and asked him to lecture in the botanical garden. Thus the
young man became a teacher in the very place where he had applied the
year before for the humble situation of gardener. Dr. Rudbeck, moreover,
took him into his house as tutor to his children, and thus he had access
to a fine collection of books and drawings on natural history subjects.
His mornings were then occupied in giving instruction to the students,
and his evenings in composing the new system and meditating a general
reformation in botanical science. He had no time to waste at Upsala.
It will have been noticed how kindly Linnæus was treated by a few true
lovers of science, and it was greatly to the honour of the good simple
people of science-loving Scandinavia.
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