l86 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Carthamus Melissa Spinacia 



Castanea Parietaria Scrophularia 



Euphrasia Potentilla Valeriana 



To this list of fifteen, credited to this author by Sprengel, I find 

 two more to be added, namely Hepaiica and Ficaria. Sprengel's 

 reason for not taking them into the reckoning was simply this, that 

 he did not admit the types as worthy of generic rank, but held with 

 Linnaeus that the former was but an Anemone and the latter a 

 Ranunculus. 



Now when Sprengel and other advocates of priority credit 

 such genera to Brunfels, it is not to be understood as their meaning 

 that in his book these types are for the first time named and defined. 

 The truth is, that all of them had been known before Brunfels, and 

 some of them had been much written about, under different names. 

 For a heading to each chapter in which a genus is discussed, Brunfels 

 selects, out of the several names current for that genus, the one 

 that pleases him best; and, by virtue of the great prestige which 

 his book obtained, the plant names in it were continued in use by 

 other authors. Therefore they who credit Sanicula, Potentilla, 

 Fragaria or Hepaiica to Brunfels affirm no more than this, that each 

 such name, as the fixed appellation of a certain generic type, is 

 traceable back to Brunfels. 



In his researches upon native German plants he came to know 

 here and there a type which, after the most diligent comparison 

 with all the classical plant descriptions, he felt certain had not been 

 known to the ancients, neither been described by any one. They 

 were new generic types; and to such he never assigns any name at 

 all, other than that by which it is known to German peasants. 

 There is beautifully figured in one place a flowering plant of Carda- 

 tnine pratensis.^ Above the figure the German name Gauchbluem 

 is inscribed; beneath it the statement in Latin that the plant was 

 unknown to the ancients, though common enough in Germany, 

 and native. One page is occupied by a most accurate and life-like 

 representation of Anemone nemorosa, with the legend: " A wildwood 

 herb, the name of which is unknown. "^ Nor is there any other 

 mention of the plant ; not so much as a record of its being known by 

 a vernacular name. This is doubtless the earliest publication of the 

 Wood Anemone. 



Out of such namelessly figured types there might here be gathered 

 surprising items of plant history. For one instance: any one 



> Herb. Viv. Icon., vol. i, p. 218. 

 » Ibid, vol. ii, p. 80. 



