Robinson : Further Notes on the Agrimonies 299 



ment of judgment, that bete noire in matters nomenclatorial, cannot 

 here be entirely excluded. But judgment will pretty generally 

 require that a characterization of a species, to be valid, must state 

 at least several features of the plant described, for such a combina- 

 tion diminishes in an almost geometric ratio, to the number of 

 characteristics mentioned, the chance that a given description will 

 apply to more than one plant. To permit the mere vernacular 

 translation of a specific name to count as an adequate characteriza- 

 tion is to remove all real distinction between nomina nuda on the 

 one hand and described names on the other. " Agrimonia pumila M 

 tells quite as much as " Agrimonia pnmila, — little." To maintain 

 that the former is unworthy of notice, and the latter is adequately 

 described, is to make an arbitrary distinction based in no way upon 

 the sufficiency of the information given. 



The argument that Agrimonia Enpatoria hirsuta of Muhlen- 

 berg must have been the species later taken up as A. hirsuta, 

 since otherwise Muhlenberg could not have known our common- 

 est agrimony, seems to me to be a kind of reasoning very likely 

 to lead to error. Experience has shown that the type of a species » 

 when looked up, is often quite different from the plant sug- 

 gested by a brief description, and the unexpected is constantly 

 happening in such matters. The early tropical explorers, for in- 

 stance, overlooked , many plants which later investigation has 

 shown extremely abundant in the regions they traversed, and on 

 the other hand, they secured many plants of such rarity that it 

 has taken years of patient search to rediscover them. To me it 

 would seem quite possible that Muhlenberg was describing as 

 " rough-haired " merely one of the most pubescent states of the 

 plant which has been passing as A. striata, while his var. glabra 

 may well, as suggested, have been the smoother although never 

 really glabrous form of the same plant, for this species varies in pu- 

 bescence and at times becomes distinctly scabrous without change 

 of the fruit characters. When we see that such an acute observer 

 and wide traveler as Michaux never recognized the plant which 

 has been passing as A. hirsuta % I can see no convincing proof that 

 Muhlenberg must have done so. 



As the precedence of the earlier varietal name has been men- 

 tioned in connection with this genus, it is worth while here to ex- 



