MIMULUS JAMESII. — JAMES MONKEY-FLOWER. 75 



applied to them. As these terms are used by the various 

 botanists they convey no definite idea of size to the mind of 

 the reader, and Dr. Gray, therefore, tries to define "small" by a 

 comparison of the flowers of M. Jamesii with those of the Musk- 

 Plant. But when we measure the limb of a Musk-Flower, and 

 find it half an inch across, we can hardly realize how the flowers 

 of our species, which are said to be larger than those of the 

 Musk, can be called small. Again, in using the expression 

 "fructiferous calyx," Dr. Gray does not mean to say that the 

 calyx bears the fruit. The calyx is simply permanent, and 

 encloses the fruit or capsule, and this is what Dr. Gray refers 

 to. Some of the half-mature capsules, or rather of the calices 

 which enclose them, are shown in our Fig. 2. 



The student will see from these illustrations that he must 

 make allowances, not only for the imperfections of nature, but 

 also for those of language, by which even the best of botanists 

 are occasionally liable to be led into ambiguities of expression, 

 or even actual mistakes. 



In its family history the genus Mimulus has shared the fate 

 of most of the plants which Avere known before the time of 

 Linnaeus, that is to say, it was for a long time without a settled 

 home in the botanic system. It was thrown together with 

 Euphrasia^ Lyslmachia, and even with Digitalis or Foxglove, 

 until Linnaeus finally gave it a " local habitation and a name " 

 by calling it Mimulus. This word is derived from the Greek 

 mimo, an ape, and according to the dictionaries our common 

 name " Monkey-Flower " is simply a translation of this botanical 

 appellation. But we have never been able to recognize a resem- 

 blance to the face of a monkey in any Mimulus flower that we 

 ever saw, and we are inclined, therefore, to suggest another 

 derivation. Pliny tells us of a plant called Mitnmulus, which in 

 his time was a very bad weed in the fields. This weed is sup- 

 posed by the commentators to have had seed-vessels something 

 like those of the Rhinanthus, a genus which belongs to the same 

 order to which the Monkey-Flower belongs. As the fruit of 



