osi. s 
SOME CRITICAL SPECIES OF ECHIUM. 423 
(V.) ECHIUM RUBRUM. 
The three specimens J, K, L are in good preservation and quite typical of 
Jaequin's species. The mark on J indicates a plant sent by Gerber, who 
collected in South Russia in the area of Æ. rubrum. The unusual style, not 
deeply cloven into two filiform branches as in all other European species, but 
ending in a elubbed stigma, is conspicuous. The corollas still preserve the 
dark red colour, as of dry blood, that is peculiar to Æ. rubrum. The species 
was well known to Clusius, who has a good figure of it as /Zchium rubro flore 
in Rar. Stirp. Pann. p. 681 (1583) and in Hist. ii. p. 164 (1590), with a fair 
description, assigning as habitat the neighbourhood of Sopronium (Oeden- 
burg) in Hungary, which is also Jacquin’s locus classicus. Unfortunately, 
Clusius's name is quoted by Linnzus under Æ. violaceum, but Echium rubro 
flore, Ray Hist. p. 499, identical with Clusius's plant, is given as a synonym 
of E. ereticum. To the confusion of mind underlying this double false 
reference may be attributed the absence of any determination by Linnæus of 
his three specimens. 
(VI.) ECHIUM VIOLACEUM. 
Echium violaceum, L. Mant. p. 42, has most frequently been misinterpreted, 
especially by British botanists, as a large-flowered form of Æ. plantagineum. 
Individuals of the latter species are often determined as violaceum ; many 
such with large corollas, from the Atlantic islands, having been so labelled 
by C. B. Clarke in Herb. Kew. On the other hand, Grenier, in Fl. Fr. ii. 
p. 524, argued that Linnzeus meant Æ. rubrum, Jacq., but the diagnosis and 
the specimen in the herbarium prove both suppositions to be wrong.  Moris's 
statement in Fl. Sard. iii. p. 129 that Æ. pustulatum, Sibth. & Sm., was meant, 
“ E, violaceum H. U. sic in Linnsei ! herbario, ramus absque foliis radicalibus, 
Echium pustulatum nostram maxime refert, Ab Æ. plantagineo certe 
alienum,” is nearer the mark, but I shall give reasons for thinking that the 
specimen is not true /7. pustulatum, Sibth. & Sm. 
Are we then to substitute /. violaceum, L., as the earlier name, for that of 
whatever species this specimen may really belong to? Certainly not ; 
because even if the identity of the specimen were indisputable, the name 
violaceum is a confusion of the plant represented thereby with Æ. rubrum, Jacq., 
and ought therefore to be rejected as a nomen confusum in conformity with 
Art. 51, clause 4, of the international rules. To do otherwise would, in view 
of the continual and varying misuse of the name, only perpetuate error. It 
is therefore best to discard the name once and for all. 
The confusion by Linnæus of Æ. rubrum with his herbarium plant from 
Hort. Ups. will become obvious if we analyse what he says in the * Mantissa.’ 
He begins (1) with a diagnosis: * Echium corollis stamina :equantibus ; 
