LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY — GREENE 233 



glory flowers. In a word, he is so definitely the first forerunner of 

 Tournefort in the matter of observing and carefully noting a number 

 of marked corolla forms, that it seems due him that a list of them 

 should here be given synoptically. 



Rotate, typified in Nigella. 



Roseform, typified in Rosa, Paeonia. 



Violetform (proper) , typified in Viola, Delphinium. 



Violetform (cruciferous), typified in Cheiranthus, Matthiola. 



Stellate, typified in Sedum, Solanum. 



Campaniform, typified in Campanula, Digitalis. 



Cymbaliform, typified in Convolvulus, Oxalis. 



Gifted with keen perceptibilities in the matter of floral structures, 

 it is rather remarkable that Tragus did not assign names to such 

 very strong corolla-types as the bilabiate and the papilionaceous; 

 for I find in him no trace of any term by which he would designate 

 either one. Even the later Latins seem to have denominated 

 certain very nettled-leaved labiates as " nettles with a lip "; and this 

 most lynx-eyed and original inspector of flowers seldom names 

 anything more than the mere color of labiate flowers, once only — 

 the case of glechoma above referred to — giving perhaps a hint of 

 the form. In respect to the flower of leguminous plants he does 

 not so much as second the suggestion of Gesner that the pea blcs- 

 som has the form of a butterfly, but attributes, for example, to the 

 pea vine the flower of genista, and to genista in its turn the flower 

 of the pea, and so on to the end of the series. There was never- 

 theless in Tragus' time a German school boy who had already 

 coined the term papilionaceous for these flowers, though only in 

 manuscripts that were not published until after Tragus' demise. 



Among those scattered anthological notes which, to his con- 

 temporaries and to himself, may have seemed of least moment 

 were his various observations upon stamens. Their function had 

 not yet been guessed at, or even by Tragus himself so much as 

 thought about. The organ had not been even morphologically 

 contemplated, in its individuality, up to the time when Tragus 

 began to examine it in different flowers comparatively. From 

 time almost immemorial they had been mentioned only collectively, 

 in Latin writing, as the capillamenta, the flocci, the stamina, the 

 apices; mostly a tuft of thready things, with or without knotted tips. 

 It is altogether a new thing in botany for a man to write as follows 

 concerning the white-lily flower: "From out the bottom of it 



