Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/520

 490 he mistook their use, being quite ignorant of the fecundation of plants. Dillenius took the one flower precisely for the other, and yet absurdly called capsula what he believed to be anthera. Linnæus, who had previously formed just ideas on the subject, as appears from his manuscript Tour to Lapland, too implicitly submitted his own judgment to that of Dillenius, and adopted his hypothesis, at the same time correcting, as he thought, his phraseology. Hence the whole glare of the blunder of Dillenius has fallen on Linnæus; for while we read in the Linnæan definitions of mosses every where the word anthera, and in those of Dillenius, usually accompanying them, capsula; few persons, who have lately been instructed by Hedwig that the part in question is really a capsule, take the trouble to recollect that Dillenius so grossly misused that word. Various ideas have been started on this subject by Haller, Necker, and others, which could only claim attention while it remained in great obscurity. The excellent Hedwig has entirely the merit of an original discoverer