eU ET 
SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF ECHIUM. 419 
latter in the ‘Species Plantarum.’ I think we may be fairly sure that when 
he wrote that work he had not seen any specimens that he knew to be 
Tournefort's Kehium amplissimo folio lusitanicum, for the example in Hort. 
Cliff. was unrecognised by him. Why he did not further deal with the 
species after he had Burman's specimen it is useless to speculate. But in 
all the circumstances we certainly cannot take the absence of his autograph as 
any indication that he thought the specimen was not his lusitanicum. 
(b) This phrase is the only serious objection to the identification of 
Ai, lusitanicum with K. Broteri, the stamens of the latter being exserted, 
especially the two lowest, as noticed by Brotero. But in the specimen the 
very few remaining corollas are in such a state that the incompatibility of 
the phrase with the plant might be overlooked. Yet we cannot rely on such 
an explanation, which would throw no light on the reason for the original use 
of the phrase in Sp. Pl. We shall, I think, be justified in assuming either 
that longioribus was a slip of the pen or of an amanuensis for brevioribus, or 
that it was a mistake due to some misunderstanding that cannot now be 
traced. “Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus." 
(c) Brotero says under X. vulgare, * Echium lusitanicum L. quod passim 
occurrit, est varietas staminibus corolla vix brevioribus." How could Brotero 
know this with nothing but Linnzeus's brief phrase to go upon? He could 
not be referring to the Wierzhickii form of vulgare, quia passim non occurrit, 
least of all in Portugal. Indeed, the vulgare of Brotero is supposed by all 
later authors to be tuberculatum, Hoffmg. et Link. 
(d) and (e) Almost simultaneously Link took the lusitanicum of Linnwus 
to mean Æ. plantagineum. His suggestion and that of Brotero are equally 
untenable and mutually destructive. In 1804, the very year of publication 
of the Fl. Lus., Link sent to Smith two little flowering scraps, each about 
24 inches long, of X. plantagineum with this ticket :— 
ES 
| : i 
2, Echium lusitanicum ? Ad plantagineum quoque bene convenit. F...* in Lusit. 
| i 
These scraps may be seen on the sheet of X. plantagineum in Herb. Smith, 
who has only written against them “ Portugal, Prof. Link 1804.” 
No doubt these fragments are what induced Smith to insert a query after 
Linn. fil.’s determination of specimen M as Æ. lusitanicum. We can only 
guess that some letter of his acknowledging them must have been misunder- 
stood as meaning that in Herb. Linn. there is no specimen of Æ. lusitanicum. 
Indeed, Link, in Fl. Port. ii. p. 186, went.so far as to identify not only 
E. lusitanicum, Mill. (which is identical with the Linnean lusitanicum), but 
even Tournefort's X. amplissimo folio Lusitanieum with £F. plantagineum, 
which is manifestly absurd. He then-goes on “ Æ. lusitanicum in herbario 
* I cannot read the two letters after F. ; possibly meaning “Frequens.” 
