248 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



mental reservation. Morphologically it is abrupt, extremely so. 

 Qualitatively considered, however, the entire series, from the first 

 labiate to the last crucifer has a common character; and Tragus 

 realized this character and allowed it to influence his classifying. 

 The whole line, or group, is one made up of herbs either aromatic 

 or pungent, or both. Let us accentuate this fact by denominating 

 the mint-lavender division of the series the spicy plants, and the 

 peppergrass-buttercup end of it the peppery plants. Now if one 

 should catalogue and enumerate all the aromatic-scented and all 

 the pungent-tasting herbs that are, the aggregate of them all would 

 be but a fraction of the whole number of herbaceous plants. Such 

 constitute, I suppose, not much more than a tenth of all the herbs 

 known to Tragus. But his thought is that such a qualitative thread 

 as this, pervading many species, may be used to line them up by, 

 even so as to include within the line here and there a few which in the 

 particulars of their morphology are not at agreement with the others. 



Now this first series of seven crucifers is made up of species the 

 tender stems and leaves of which were eaten raw as salads, or else 

 the crushed seeds were used as condiments. They are particularly 

 pungent, or peppery crucifers. Even the name nasturtium, which 

 half the species bore, the etymologists derive from that irritation 

 of the nasal passages experienced during mastication of these things. 

 It must here be stated that, after the interpolation of the butter- 

 cups, the resumption of the line of crucifers is made at the genus 

 of the mustards, plants the ground seeds of which had been 

 employed in medicine as counter-irritants from time immemorial. 

 And there will be readers to whom the information will be new that 

 the seeds of the buttercups are as pungent as the seeds of mustard 

 and were long used for the same purpose of raising blisters on the 

 skin. Yet this acridly pungent quality of them is expressed in the 

 very names by which the commonest species are known in botany, 

 that is to say Ranunculus sceleratus and Ranunculus acris. And 

 Tragus was so familiar with all this, as to have been constrained to 

 locate the Ranunculus species in the midst of the counter-irritants ; 

 for his whole volume was indited to a great extent in the interest 

 of those who practiced, even rudely and primitively, the healing 

 art. These would expect to find remedial equivalents treated of in 

 contiguous chapters, and he was willing to meet their expectations. 



The resumption of the line of the crucifers has brought us to the 

 limit of the one hundred sample pages which we were to examine 

 somewhat thoroughly in quest of the man's mind and method. And 

 now, perhaps in no way may one more easily arrive at a still fuller 



