398 MR. C. C. LACAITA : A REVISION OF 
The question now arises whether the name Æ. ereticum, L., should be used 
either for Æ. australe, Lam. = E. grandiflorum, Desf., or for E. angustifolium, 
Mill. =F. elegans, Lehm., or whether it should not rather be entirely dis- 
carded as a nomen confusum. The following considerations will, I think, 
establish that it must be disearded :— 
It will be best to begin with the history of the name eretieum, which first 
appears in Clusius, Hist. ii. p. 164 (1601). He describes two species as 
E. creticum I. and E. creticum II., both from garden plants. His descrip- 
tions are not in themselves such as to allow of certainty, but it is pretty 
clear that No. I. is the ereticum of herb. Linn, and No. II. is Æ. angustifolium, 
Mill. He observes * bina porro alia Æchii genera, Cretico semine, quod 
mittebam, nata, creverunt Joanni ab Hogelande, anno MDXCIII.... 
accipiebam autem semina, ex quibus hæ plante nate, non Kehit appellatione 
sed Anchuse, cujus semen e Creta allatum esset." The use of the mood in 
* esset ” indicates that though the seeds were supposed to have come from 
Crete, this was uncertain. This little turn of the Latin did not escape 
Linnzeus, who says in Hort. Cliff. of No. II. “crescit forte in Creta." The 
Cretan origin may be accepted for No. II. but not for No. I., as no Echium 
resembling the Linnean specimen or those of the other old herbaria has ever 
been found in the island, Æ. ereticum, Fl. Gr. being notoriously K. parvi- 
Illorum, Moench. 
The next mention of the name is by C. Bauhin, * Phytopinax,’ p. 489 (1596), 
where, distinguishing Æ. rubrum ereticum from L. vulgare, he says “ minus 
est, sed ramosius, paucioribus floribus ; eleganter rubent; tota planta 
Lyeopsin alteram anglieam Lobel icon. p. 579 plurimum refert." The 
allusion to Lobel's figure, which represents Æ. italicum or E. pyrenaicum 
(see my notes on Miller's Echia), shows that Bauhin meant Clusius No. II. 
= E. angustifolium, Mill. Afterwards, in the * Pinax^ of 1623, p. 254, he 
enumerated without diagnosis two species, Æ. creticum latifolium rubrum and 
LE. creticum angustifolium rubrum. These are the names which constantly 
recur in later authors and obviously correspond to Clusius's creticum I. and 
ereticum II. 
It is uncertain, and indeed immaterial, to which of these two should be 
referred the Echium | Candice flore pulchre rubente of J. Bauhin, Hist. iii. 
p. 589 (1651), distinguished from Æ. vulgare as * magis ramosa, flores forma 
similes, nempe hiantes, sed colore diverso pulchro, scilicet rubente." Though 
I think it more probably corresponds to ereticum I. 
Linneeus first speaks of Æ. ereticum, in Hort. Cliff. p. 43 (1737), as follows: 
“ Echium caule simplici, foliis caulinis linearibus, floribus spicatis ex alis. 
E. ereticum angustifolium rubrum Bauh. Pin. 2545 Boerh. lugdb. i. p. 194. 
7. creticum 2 Clus. Hist. 2, p. 145. Crescit forte in Creta, unde Clusius 
semina habuit," The Hort. Cliff. plant is therefore identical with Æ. angusti- 
