Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/533

 Rh are akin to the liliaceous tribe, and Linnæus happily terms them the princes of the vegetable kingdom. His most numerous remarks concerning them occur in his Prælectiones in Ordines Naturales Plantarum, published by Professor Giseke at Hamburgh in 1792, from private lectures and conversations of Linnæus. This work however is necessarily full of errors and mistakes, not only from its mode of compilation and the intricacy of the subject, but because Linnæus had only partially studied certain parts of that subject, and was undecided in his sentiments upon those parts. It was a singular instance of indulgent liberality in him to allow his disciples Fabricius and Giseke to make notes, for their own use, of what he considered himself as scarcely competent to lay in a finished form before the public. We are obliged to the editor for preserving these valuable though crude materials, and he has shown ability in digesting and elucidating them. I should scarcely, for my own part, have thought it right to furnish still more crude and imperfect guesses and opinions, from manuscripts which their illustrious author had purposely,