USE OF LINNEAN SPECIFIC NAMES, 373 
** «There can be no doubt that Linneus under his Hypericum 
“quadrangulum included both H. dubium (Leers) and H. tetra- 
“pterum (Fries); and as botanists are pretty equally divided in 
“their opinion as to which of these two ought to receive the 
“name ‘quadrangulum,’ it is much better to abandon an 
“appellation which really belongs to neither exclusively, when 
“the two plants have distinctive names of their own. In the 
“Linnean Herbarium, H. quadrangulum is represented by a 
“specimen of each of the two species ; and that being the case, 
“it is of no use trying to determine to which of the two he first 
“gave the name quadrangulum, or which is the common.Swedish 
“plant; there is evidence to show that he considered the 
‘species extensive enough to include both.” (Eng. Bot. ed. 3, 
vol. ii. p. 153.) 
Now to our thinking Smith and the other earlier modern 
British botanists were right in applying the Linnean name to 
she distinct widely-distributed conspicuously four-angled plant ; 
and Koch, Fries, and the rest are wrong in using it for the less 
distinct, obscurely four-angled plant, and Syme and his party are 
also wrong in rejecting it on the ground of ambiguity. There is 
not the least doubt that Linnzus knew the more distinct plant, 
for there is a specimen in his herbarium; it is not likely he meant 
the less distinct plant exclusively, and the fact that there is a 
specimen of the latter also in his herbarium under the name, is 
no proof that he meant to include it. 
2. Rosa Earanterta. This is an instance of a Linnean name 
having been incorrectly applied, or rejected, through alterations in 
the specific characters introduced in a subsequent publication. 
The plant referred to in ‘Species Plantarum,’ 1753, p. 491, was, as 
pointed out by Woods in this Society’s Transactions, xii. (1818) 
p. 208, clearly the Sweet Briar. In the second edition of ‘ Species 
Plantarum,’ however, Linneus introduced characters of 2. lutea, 
and some authors have applied the name to that species, but the 
majority of writers in recent years have discarded it altogether. 
3. Eprmopium TEerraconum. The description of this in 
“Species Plantarum,’ 1758, p. 348, reads “ Epilobium foliis 
lanceolato-linearibus denticulatis imis oppositis caule tetragono. 
Sauv. Monsp. 75.” Tabernemontanus’s plate (Ic. 854) which is 
cited does not agree with the description; the specimen in 
Linneus’s herbarium is E. roseum, Schreb., and in the second 
