( 2098 ) 



Orobus Lathyroides. Upright Bitter- 

 Vetch. 



C/flss awd Order. 



DlADELPHlA DECANDRIA. 



Generic Character. 



Stylus linearis. CaZ. basi obtusus: laciniis superioribus 

 profundioribus, brevioribus. 



Specific Character and Synonyms. 



Orobus Lathyroides ; foliis conjugatis subscssilibus, stipulis 



dentatis. Hort. Ups. 220. Sp. PL 1027. Syst. Veg. 



14. p. 661. Willd. 3. p. 1072. Ilort. Kew. ed. alt. 4. 



p. 303. Persoon Syn. 2. p. 303. Pall it, 2. p. 559. 



Gmel. Sib. 4. p. 12. ,.., ..:-.; 



Lathyroides erecta, folio ovato-acuminato, caerulcis viciaa 



floribus et siliquis, sibirica. Amman Ruth. p. 124. n. 



151. t.n.j.2. 



Linmeus first constructed a botanical language upon philo- 

 sophical principles, by means of which, each idea might be 

 expressed without any useless words. He carried this so far 

 that, by his peculiar punctuation alone, he often expresses 

 what other authors use many words to arrive at. In like 

 manner the use of capital or small letters was with him never 

 arbitrary, but expressive of some idea. But of late we observe 

 that botanists are frequently inattentive to this precision. 1 lie 

 present plant affords an instance of this neglect, which, how- 

 ever, may perhaps have originated in an oversight of the 

 great botanist himself. In all late systematic publications the 

 specific name is written lathyroides with a small /; winch 

 would signify that the plant in the author's idea was lathyrus- 

 like. But it appears to us that in this instance Linnaeus did 



not 



