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Bibliographical Notes on well-known Plants.—VI. 
By EDWARD L. GREENE. 
' NYMPHAA and NUPHAR. 
Since the BULLETIN for September was printed, I have been 
able to establish as true all, and more than all, which I therein 
set forth as possible in relation to the priority of Salisbury’s di- 
vision of the old genus Vymphea over that of Smith. The dif- 
ference in time between the two is greater than I had assumed. 
Salisbury’s monograph was certainly published in 1805, while so 
late as the middle of November, 1808, that part of the Flora 
Greca which was to exhibit Smith’s disposal of these plants 
had not yet made its appearance. This is evident from a letter,* 
written by him at that time, to Dr. Samuel Goodenough, Bishop 
of Carlisle; and, therefore, Salisbury’s Mymphea, which is not 
that of Smith, antedates it not by one year only, but by three. 
The action of Smith was a deliberate attempt to suppress— 
relegate to oblivion, if he might—Salisbury’s monograph as a 
whole, and to banish his name, in so far as might be possible, from 
all connection with the nomenclature of these plants. This at- 
tempt was made, not without the necessary private consultation 
with the most scholarly members of his own botanical clique. 
Salisbury had made it clear to the mind of Sir James that the 
white water lilies and the yellow were generically different. I 
quote the language in which he opens the consultation with his 
Lordship of Carlisle. ‘‘ Now I want your Lordship’s advice, both 
critical and botanical. _ Mr. Salisbury [whom I wish in this case 
to consider as an. indifferent person] makes Vymphea alba a dis- 
tinct genus from /u/ea, and I think rightly.” He then proceeds 
to‘lay before his chosen counsellor the scheme by which he will 
make as little as he can of Salisbury’s work. He offers sundry 
objections against Castalia, proposes to replace it by Nymphea, 
and to give to the yellow water-lilies the name Blephara. 
So it appears we should have had that name instead of Nuphar, 
but for the Right Reverend Dr. Goodenough, who frowned up- 
on it in a manner not uncourteous, and recommended in its stead 
Nuphar or Madonia, both of which, he showed his correspondent, 
-* Mem. and Corresp. Sir J. E. Smith, i. 576. 
