BRITISH SEA-THRIFTS3 AND SEA-LAVENDERS. 73 
then would have been a convenient time to have restored the 
names used by Tournefort in the ‘Institutiones.’ It is possible 
that if, in the years intervening between the dates of 1753 and 
1809, there had been no restoration of Tournefort’s genera, 
Willdenow may have been justified in finding another name for 
the Thrifts, since, although the Thrift has the “ priority of place” 
in the ‘Species Plantarum,’ this Neo-American law necessarily was 
unknown to Willdenow, and is even now not generally followed, 
while he possibly was influenced by the fact that the greater 
number of species in the Linnean genus Statice consisted of Sea- 
Lavenders, and therefore to them belonged the name Statice ; 
but I think there is no valid reason for his neglect of the general 
opinion of contemporary botanists or in wilfully ignoring the 
use of these names by the distinguished botanists Tournefort, 
Dillenius, Moehring, Amman, and many other pre-Linnean 
botanists (I am using the term pre-Linnean to signify that their 
use of the names Statice and Limonium was made before the 
date of 1753, and not necessarily that in all cases they preceded 
Linneus). Moreover, very shortly after the establishment of 
the Linnean genus Statice in 1753, our own countryman John 
Hill (who was a keeper of Kew Gardens, and who lived at Den- 
ham in Buckinghamshire) published in 1756 the‘ British Herbal’ 
on Tournefortian lines, in which he again separated the two 
genera under Tournefort’s names, and thus describes the Thrift — 
Linneus, he says, “confounds the sea-lavender with the thrift. 
He takes away the generical name limonium, and makes all these 
plants species of statice; but there is an absolute and essential 
distinction in the general cup, which supports that in the form 
and universal aspect. Thus Nature confirms the obvious dif- 
ferences, and thus [Linnzus] has confounded them ; not heed- 
lessly, for he names this very difference, acknowledging, that 
while the common cup of the limonium contains a great number 
of flowers in a long series, and is simple, and of an oblong form ; 
that of statice is triple, and comprehends them in a round 
cluster. This we shall explain at large in its place, treating of 
statice.” Under Limonium he has three species, and under 
Statice one species, Statice vulgaris; and says “ there 1s nO other 
known species distinct from this,” a statement quite Benthamiin 
in its generalization, although Kuntze is even now practically in 
accord with him. In this ‘Herbal’ Hill has not adopted the 
binomial system, and for that reason some authorities would 
LINN. JOURN.— BOTANY, VOL. XXXV. @ 
