t64 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



but he is so discouragingly aware of the multitude of errors that 

 have originated through placing dependence on descriptive botany. 

 He thought there was a better way ; but this proposal of his seems 

 to imply on his part an overweening confidence in the perpetuity 

 of things. He did not foresee a time when the race of capable 

 phytognosts would fail, and when in default of such teachers 

 for the identifying of plants there would be no other dependence at 

 all but the old and often imperfect descriptions. 



Men follow great leaders when the leaders are in the wrong, about 

 as faithfully as when in the right; and if, during several centuries 

 after Galen, lesser lights continued to mention plants hardly more 

 than by their names and remedial qualities, it was after the example 

 of his authority as supreme. In such manner may the most expert 

 man of science chance to antagonize the best interests of that 

 science, and heavily impede its progress along one line while advanc- 

 ing it in a different direction. 



His indifference to phytography notwithstanding, Galen has 

 been credited with having made some few additions to the list of 

 known plants by new name, and by some sort of description. 



Michel Adanson attributed the discovery and the naming of 

 two new genera to Galen. They are Lycopersicon ^ and Arctostaphy- 

 los.^ Both names are now in use for genera, but it is impossible 

 to identify either one with the type which Galen had in hand; 

 but from such description as the Greek gave out, his Arctostaphylos 

 would be V accinium Arctostaphylos rather than Arctostaphylos uva 

 ursi. 



In the year 1737 Linnaeus dedicated a genus Galenia to the 

 memory of Galen. 



' Adanson, Families des Plantes, vol. ii, p. 572. 

 » Ibid., p. 165. 



