Flora of Japan

Page 19

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THE SYSTEM

I have indeed followed, in most respects, my teacher of blessed memory, the Chief Physician LINNAEUS; however, I have not slavishly adopted all of his classes. Instead, I have separated several—not only because they are useless, but also because they are uncertain and false—and I have sent their plants away to other classes where they belong, as nature herself shows the way. I have therefore excluded the classes Gynandria Plants where stamens are fused to the pistil, Monoecia Male and female flowers on the same plant, Dioecia Male and female flowers on separate plants, and Polygamia Plants with male, female, and hermaphrodite flowers, having been convinced of their lesser necessity through many years of experience and diligent observation of vegetables. I shall proceed to explain the reasons in the following points:

1. Those plants are properly called Gynandrous in whose flowers the filaments the stalks of the stamens are inserted into the pistil, or more correctly, into the style. However, in this entire class, when examined more accurately, there are hardly any others that are truly gynandrous besides the Orchids—if even those deserve to be so called, as they have the parts of the pistil so confused that hardly anything certain can be determined regarding the style and stigma. Nevertheless, nothing prevents this family, being equipped with two anthers, from being referred to the class Diandria The class of plants with two stamens. Aristolochia Birthwort indeed seems to be truly gynandrous, but it can conveniently, and with greater right ought to, be assigned to Hexandria The class with six stamens. In Gunnera, the two filaments are inserted into the sides of the two-toothed ovary outside the teeth, not into the style; therefore, this genus should by every right be numbered among the Diandria. Sisyrinchium and Ferraria, both of which I have very often examined alive, bear three filaments fused into a cylinder, [surrounding] the style...