56 



THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



"Fecundusque rumex malvaeque inulaeque virebant;" 

 and that to his knowledge no other passage in the classics gave 

 any clue to the gender of Rumcx. 



We have then as authority just these two passages, each 

 directly contradicting the other and Linnaeus had exactly as 

 much right to make Rumex masculine as. one of us would 

 have to make it feminine. It would hardly do to say that he 

 had overlooked the passage in Pliny; Linnaeus was an en- 

 thusiastic and widely-read classical scholar and doubtless was 

 familiar with both passages. But those who know how 

 quickly his vivid imagination was aroused, can easily under- 

 stand that the picturesque words of the unknown poet would 

 make a deeper impression upon him than the more sober lan- 

 guage of the naturalist — for if Linnaeus had not been a 

 scientist he would most assuredly have been a poet. 



Once again, therefore, the immortal founder of modern 

 botanical science is vindicated and the name of the genus 

 Rumex may continue to stand as it has been accepted by the 

 generations who have followed him, as a masculine rather 

 than a feminine substantive. 



