232 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Guelder Rose ( = Viburnum Opulus) , Rock Rose ( = Cistus) Rose of 

 Sharon ( = Hibiscus Trionum) ; also there is Dame's Violet ( = Hesperis 

 matronalis) Dogtooth Violet ( Erythronium), and a great number 

 of other such, for plants that have no affinity to either the rose 

 genus or violet genus. Doubtless with some of the peasantry of 

 several countries to-day the showy flowers they know may be 

 found classified in their languages more or less definitely as roses, 

 lilies, and violets. And something like this was most certainly 

 true four hundred years ago in rural Germany where Tragus was 

 born, and where he did all his botanizing. And although I find 

 him twice using the term violet for small flowers that do not readily 

 fall into either of his two definable categories of violets, I do not 

 think that either one instances a lapse into that primitive usage 

 under which the term is synonymous with smallish petaliferous 

 flowers in general. If he calls the flower of the catsfoot, or ground 

 ivy 1 a violet, the color of the flower, and the irregularity of its co- 

 rolla-limb may have suggested it ; and the corolla of a bryony 2 is not 

 unlike that of the sterile outer row of those in viburnum 3 corymbs. 

 That he in truth goes far on the way toward a convenient morpho- 

 logical classification of corollas is evinced by his giving diagnostic 

 names to still other forms. Among the polypetalous he even dis- 

 tinguishes the rotate from the rosaceous. The flower of nigella he 

 says is " round like a wheel, " 4 that is, the petals spread away in a 

 flatly horizontal direction from their axis, a thing which can not 

 be said of either rose or paeony petals. It is an excellent dis- 

 tinction, not noted even by Tournefort the great corollistic systema- 

 tist of a hundred and fifty years later ; for he describes the nigella 

 flower as rosaceous. 5 The campanulate, or campaniform, was 

 also named by Tragus. In his description of the plant hyoscyamus 

 lie says that it has little bells for flowers. 6 The corollas of cam- 

 panula, 7 of digitalis, 8 and of vaccinium 9 are said to be campaniform. 

 The funnelform is also alluded to, though under the term cym- 

 "baliform. He attributes that configuration to lily and morning- 



1 Stir p. Comm., p. 798. 



2 Ibid., p. 819. 

 * Ibid., p. 1002. 



* Ibid., p. 117. 



* Tourn., Elemens., vol. i, 225. 

 Stirp. Comm., p. 132. 



' Ibid., pp. 724, 926. 

 - Ibid., p. 888. 

 Ibid., p. 974- 



