[From the Bulletin 01 nn Torrbv Botanical Ci.ih, 37 : 375-386. 1910.I 



Notes on Rosaceae — III 



Per Axel Rydberg 



POTEXTILLA 



If we were trying to trace the origin of the name Potent ilia, we 

 should probably find that the name belonged to Potentilla Anserina 

 L., or Argentina Anserina of the North American Flora. There is 

 no doubt but that very species was the plant usually referred to 

 by the name Potentilla among the prc-Linnaean botanists, although 

 other species, as for instance P. reptans L., sometimes were meant. 

 As our nomenclature begins with Linnaeus, it concerns us very 

 little, however, what his predecessors named plants. The question 

 that most concerns us is, What application did Linnaeus make 

 of the name Potentilla? We know that Linnaeus often adopted 

 names from earlier authors and used them in an entirely different 

 meaning. 



As stated before, our nomenclature begins with Linnaeus, and 

 we have agreed to adopt the Species Plantarum of 1753 as the 

 starting point of generic as well as of specific names. As the 

 Species Plantarum does not give any characterization of the genera, 

 and as there are found only a few exceptional cases in which types 

 are assigned, it is necessary to turn to other works of Linnaeus, in 

 order to find his real conception of a certain genus at that time. 

 The best book for this purpose is the fifth edition of his Genera 

 Plantarum, published in the following year. In this we find on 

 page 219 that the genus no. 559, Potentilla, was not adopted from 

 anybody else. In other words, whatever the origin of the name 

 Potentilla might have been, the concept of the genus originated 

 with Linnaeus himself.* He based it on Quinquefolium Tourn. 

 and Pentaphylloides Tourn. As Quinquefolium is the first of 

 these two synonyms and the only one accompanied by an illus- 

 tration,! also cited by Linnaeus, we can not help but regard the 



*Linnaeus had the same concept even before the publication of the Species 

 Plantarum, for his genus Potentilla remained unchanged in his Genera Plantarum 

 from the first edition to the seventeenth, the last one printed during his lifetime- 



fTourn. Inst. pi. 153. 



375 



