  We discuss some contradictions found in the literature concerning the problem of stability of collisionless spherical stellar systems which are the simplest anisotropic generalization of the well-known polytrope models. Their distribution function $F(E,L)$ is a product of power-low functions of the energy $E$ and the angular momentum $L$, i.e. $F\propto L^{-s}(-E)^q$. On the one hand, calculation of the growth rates in the framework of linear stability theory and N-body simulations show that these systems become stable when the parameter $s$ characterizing the velocity anisotropy of the stellar distribution is lower than some finite threshold value, $s<s_\textrm{crit}$. On the other hand Palmer & Papaloizou (1987) showed that the instability remained up to the isotropic limit $s=0$.   Using our method of determining the eigenmodes for stellar systems, we show that the growth rates in weakly radially-anisotropic systems are indeed positive, but decrease exponentially as the parameter $s$ approaches zero, i.e. $\gamma\propto \exp(-s_{\ast}/s)$. In fact, for the systems with finite lifetime this means stability. 
Notes on the stability threshold for radially anisotropic polytrope