lOi THE .10UKN.VL OF BOTANY 



I eysser in his second edition of 1783, p. 191, at last notices that the 

 Linnean " pilis simplicissimis " will not fit the German plant, but 

 instead of suspecting an error on his own part, calmly alters those 

 woi'ds into " setis furcatis " without any ex])lanation. Roth, in Tent. 

 Fl. Germ. i. }). 333 (1788), only quotes 7>. hirfiis with the Linnean 

 diagnosis as found "in pratis et pascuis humidis totivis fere Ger- 

 maniie," but in Catalect. Bot. p. 98 (1797) he transfers Leontodon 

 hirtus to his new genus Thrincia without alluding to Linnaeus or to 

 Villars, although he had seen the latter author's work, for he refers 

 Hyoseris taraxacoides Vill. (wi'ongly) to Thrincia hispida. He says 

 of T. hirta " folia pilis bi- seu trif urcatis," apparently unconscious that 

 this one character proves it not to be the Linnean L. hirtus. Then 

 he quotes OB i. and JB, sa^dng of the latter "cum figura bona," 

 which only shows how easily Hgures can be misreferred by those who 

 ai'e not acquainted with the plant that they really represent. 



The great authority of Willdenovv and his deliberate creation of a 

 new name for the L. hirtus of Villai-s no doubt projmgated the 

 erroneous opinion, which had been combated by Wallroth, Sched. Grit. 

 Fl. Hal. p. 441 (1822) ; by Richter, the compiler of the Codex 

 Linncdcinus, in Flora, 1834, p. 661, where he says " the Linnean plant 

 is and remains the by him fully characterised south European one, 

 immediately recognisajjle by its mai-ginal Horets being yellow under- 

 neath, as already remarked by Wallroth. An error of lioth's can 

 alter nothing here " ; by Koch, Syn. p. 417 (1837), under Thrincia 

 hirta, '■'■ Leontodon hirtiim L. ex Sm. sed descriptio Linneana accu- 

 ratius in Leontodoit Villarsii quadrat " ; by Bischoff, Beitr. p. 43 

 (1851) ; and by Rouy in Bull. 8oc. Bot. Fr."'liv. p. 52 (1907). It is 

 strange that most British botanists should have overlooked or ignored 

 the protests of all these authors. Has it not occurred to them that a 

 pl.mt from the sunny hills — not the high mountains — of Dauphine is 

 a priori more likely than one from the meadows of Germany to 

 represent a species known to Linnjeus from Southern France and 

 Spam, and to his predecessors from Mont])el]ier ? 



III. What is the coiTCct name for Thrincia //?>f«-Roth, wliether 

 under Thrincia or under Leontodon, seeing that neither the Linnean 

 hirtus nor the Limiean nndicaulis can be employed for this species? 

 It is undoubtedly that of Villars, who kncAV the plant well and named 

 it Hyoseris iaraxacoides in Prosp. Dauph. p. 33 (1779) with a brief, 

 but intelligible, diagnosis. It was taken up by Allioni, Fed. i. 

 p. 227 (1785), as Hhacjadiolns taraxacoides,m\d then again described 

 and figured admiral)ly by Villars in Hist. PI. Dauph. iii. p. 166, 

 tab. XXV. (1789), where he distinctly states that it is perennial. 

 The identity of Hyoseris taraxacoides, Vill. with Thrincia hirta 

 Iloth is obvious, and the species must be called Thrincia taraxa- 

 coides, comb, nov.*, notwithstanding Roth's having wrongly quoted 



* Those who merge Thrincia in Leontodon will have to say Leontodon taraxa- 

 coides as another new combination, for L. taraxacoides Merat in Ann. Sci. Nat. 

 xxii. p. 108 (1831) is a nullity. He quotes " Leontodon taraxacoides Willd.," 

 a name that does not exist, and only gives a diagnosis insufficient for the recog- 

 nition of his plant, though I think he not improbably meant to quote Villars, 

 b;it accidentally ^\a'ote W. for V. in some memorandum, which then expanded 

 into AVilld. His paper is full of similar slips, and altogether so bad a piece of 

 work that it lia<< been entirely ignored by Eouj'. 



