132 Dr. Smith's Inquiry 



what is obviously wrong • or else they have been unparclonably 

 negligent in not turning to the authors quoted, for this at least 

 was in their power, and it is one of the things which is, of alt 

 others, most indispensable in an editor. How necessary it is 

 with respect to the editions of Linnaeus' s works, printed and re- 

 printed by awkward and ignorant hands in various countries, no 

 one who has used them can be uninformed. I had abundant ex- 

 perience of this necessity in republishing even his original Flora 

 Lapponica, and the history of Daucus Gingidium will afford ex- 

 amples of every thing to which I have just alluded. 



This plant is mentioned in the 1st edition of the Species Plan- 

 tarum, p. 242, with the following definition. Daucus radiis in- 

 volucri plants : laciniis recurvis, and a reference to Van Royen's 

 Flora Leydensis Prodrotnus, is subjoined. There we find the same 

 specific character, as well as the same quotations of Bauhin and 

 Matthiolus, except that Van Roy en cites the large Valgrisian edition 

 of the latter writer, and Linnaeus the small one, not having the other. 

 No further information is to be found in Van Royen. Linnaeus 

 quotes a synonym from Magnol, and another from Boccone's Flantce 

 Sicilice, both which appear to me very doubtful. It is not, how- 

 ever, necessary to scrutinize them, as the authority of this spe- 

 cies evidently depends on the figures of Matthiolus, from which 

 the character is in a great measure taken. Linnaeus had no spe- 

 cimen of it in his herbarium, but as he has not annexed the 

 cross (-J-) to express his never having seen it, I presume he 

 might have examined a specimen in the hands of his confidential 

 friend Van Royen. 



In the 2d edition of the Specks Plant arum, every thing is re- 

 peated from the former, with the addition of a synonym from 

 Tournefort, Daucus montanus lucidus, Tourn, Inst. 307, in which 

 there is a remarkable error, for in Tournefort it is maritimus, not 

 4 montanus; 



