USE OF LINNEAN SPECIFIC NAMES. 371 
applied the Linnean name to the segregate species represented 
in Linneus’s herbarium, but this view we do not think should 
be adopted. To regard the specimens in Linneus’s herbarium 
as the types of his species, in the same manner as those of other 
authors, to our thinking is to display an entire misconception 
of his unique position in this matter. Most of Linneus’s 
species are unlike those of later authors, in that they do not 
represent plants discovered or discriminated by Linneus, but 
plants already more or less identified, which he has formulated 
as species under binominal names; and the specimens which 
happen to bear the names, often incorrectly, in his herbarium 
afford but little evidence of what was intended, as against that 
to be gathered from the synonymy quoted and from contemporary 
works. 
Some authors have applied the names to the segregates most 
commonly found in Sweden; but this view is to our thinking 
wrong, as Linneus botanized in other countries than his own, 
besides which, as we have pointed out, most of his species are 
the outcome of the accumulated knowledge of earlier botanists. 
Another plan, and the one which seems to us the most satis- 
factory, is to apply the Linnean name to that segregate which, 
from being the most distinct, and usually also the most widely 
distributed, of those considered to be included in Linneus’s 
Species, may fairly be accepted as his type. Where there is no 
segregate which stands out from the rest in this manner, we 
think the best course is to retain the name for the residue of 
the species after the other segregates have been carved out of it 
by subsequent authors; but in applying this principle, it should, 
we think, be quite clear that such subsequently named species 
were discriminated by their authors from the residue, and were 
not merely synonymous names, originated through a misconcep- 
tion as to Linnewus’s species. 
As regards the third group, “ Those names about which there 
is more or less doubt as to the proper application,” the two 
courses pursued are :— 
(a) To discard them altogether in favour of later names, as 
to the application of which there is less doubt or no 
doubt at all. 
(6) To retain them for the species for which, from the 
balance of evidence, there is a reasonable probability 
that they were intended. 
