300 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



this one rather steadily maintained appeal to floral organs, while for 

 the time quite too much neglecting the vegetative; and also too 

 little heeding very marked differences in the fruits of things; for 

 he is perfectly aware that one of his ranunculi has "seeds" with 

 long feathery tails, that another has them densely woolly-coated 

 and compacted into the closest kind of a head, and that in a third 

 they are rather few, and more like those of a Thalictrum than they 

 are like the seeds of buttercups. 



On the whole, and as thus studiously looked into, this Ranunculus 

 of Cordus is one of the most significant chapters of taxonomic 

 history ever written; for herein is illustrated as nowhere else the 

 transition from an old taxonomy to a new one. By its making too 

 little use of fruit characters it calls for the carpologically established 

 genera of a Cesalpino 1 ; but by the very pronounced corollism of such 

 a chapter Cordus most clearly presages Tournefort. 



We shall fall short of a fair comprehension of all that is in this 

 chapter of taxonomy, unless we as carefully consider his disposal 

 of two other types not referred by Cordus to Ranunculus, but so 

 placed as immediately to succeed that genus. These are: 



Cordus Modern 



Chelidonium minus Ficaria ranunculoides. 



Chelidonium palustre Caltha palustris. 



These bring the number of ranunculaceous species in this 

 unbroken line up to fourteen. That, in as far as it goes, is very good ; 

 yet there will seem quite a glaring inconsistency in the man's having 

 excluded Ficaria from a genus to which he has already admitted, 

 over and above many good ranunculi, three anemones and a pul- 

 satilla. If the last four could go into Ranunculus, why not and 

 much more easily Ficaria? There never is in any age any other 

 so ponderous a dead weight upon scientific progress as so-called 

 "authority, " and the prejudices it entails. Those particular anem- 

 ones and the pulsatilla were plants in Cordus' time newly discovered ; 

 northern types of which no ancient Greek or Latin authority had 

 ever heard. They hardly yet had well established Latin names, 

 or fixed places in the new books of botany. It was easy for Cordus 

 to name these what he would, and to place them where he would, 

 without risk of seeming to set himself superior to ancient and revered 

 authority. The case of Ficaria was as different as possible. All 

 antiquity had known this plant. From Dioscorides forward 



1 Cesalpino was but four years younger than Cordus, but lived to old age. 



