284 Sir J. E. Smirn’s Observations on the Genus Teesdalia. 
nudicaule of Linnzeus, which you have not mentioned, but on 
whose botanical history I beg leave to offer a few remarks. 
- This little herb was first announced by the accurate Magnol, in 
his Botanicum Monspeliense, p. 187, by the name of Nasturtium 
minimum vernum, foliis tantàm circa radicem. It is said to grow at 
the entrance of the celebrated bois de Gramont, flowering in the 
early spring. ‘The short description of this author, which con- 
tains nothing to my present purpose, is accompanied by an en- 
graving, rude indeed, but so exquisitely characteristic that it may 
put to the blush many a laboured and expensive plate. 
Sauvages, in his Methodus Foliorum, 228 and 281, mentions this 
plant as a. Lepidium, expressly saying, in the page last quoted, 
that the petals are equal. 95 
Linnsus cites both these authors, and no others, in Sp. Pl, 
ed. i. 643, where he has the plant in question as VE 
Leripium nudicaule, scapo nudo simplicissimo, floribus tetrandris. 
His short description subjoined is accurate and appropriate. 
** Folia radicalia multa, linearia, apice pinnatifida vel dentata. Si- 
licule emarginate. Petala qualia. Stamina 4.” Such descrip- 
tions in his works, where no authority is cited, are always made 
from his own observation, and I have no doubt but this was so, 
Authentic specimens from Montpellier, with the name, as well as 
the number, three, in pencil and in ink, referring to the Sp. PL, 
leave no doubtof the plantintended. I have also received others 
from the same country, which, till.I was led to investigate the 
subject, I confess were referred to Iberis nudicaulis, so precisely do 
these two plants resemble each other. Mr. Curtis has fallen into 
the same error, in citing Magnol's synonym for Iberis nudicaulis, 
in his Fl. Londinensis; nor does he seem to have perceived that it 
was already quoted by Linnzus for Lepidium nudicaule. 
Gerard, in his Fl, Galloprovincialis, 347 ; has the plant of Magnol, 
by 
