TEEOXICA BUXBAUMII 275 



intermediate between V. poUta and V. Tournefortii (sc. F. Bux- 

 haumii). This is too speculative. If he had seen and examined a 

 type of Poiret's before making the suggestion, it might be taken into 

 consideration, but as a hypothetical explanation of Poiret's loose 

 language it is somewhat too a 'priori even for the German school. 



In favour of the position V. persica= V. Buxbaumii are Poiret's 

 words " cette j^lante oft're tons les caracteres du V. agrestis, mais elle 

 est bien plus grande." The association with agrestis might seem to 

 admit of V. poliia, but the words " bien plus grande " would exclude 

 Pries's species, even apart from the divergent lobes of the capsule. 



Lastly come Gaudin's observations in PL Helv. i. p. 36 (1828), 

 of which Lehmann, p. 3-14, intentionally or unintentionally, sup- 

 presses the part that is favourable to the identification of persica 

 with Biixhaiimii. Here is the whole : " V. Buxhaumii Ten. ; 

 V. persica H. P. cei*to ; Poir. Encycl. (ob pedunculos folio p?ulo bre- 



viores et corollas cah'ce minores syn. dub.) V. persica H. P. 



quam in eo horto legit amiciss. J. Gay ac mecum communicavit, a 

 nostra neutiquam differre videtur, etsi pedunculos paulo breviores 

 habet." Things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each 

 other. Poiret described the H. P. plant. The H. P. plant in 1828 

 was V. Buxhaumii. Until it is possible to examine the specimen 

 which, as M. Lecompte informs me, still exists in Poiret's Herbarium 

 in Mus. Par., this is surely as near as possible to proof that the plant 

 described by him Avas V. Buxhaumii. 



It has sometimes been objected to Gmelin's name that in 1805 

 there was already an earlier V. Tournefortii in existence. The 

 reasons given above for its rejection are quite sufficient without rely- 

 ing on this technicality, to which I only allude because it has 

 become a focus of misstatements. The earlier Veronica Tourne- 

 fortii is not due to Villars, as commonly supposed. Lehmann exer- 

 cises a vivid imagination when he says at p. 341, " Villars in Prosp. 

 Dauph. 1779, p. 30 eine V. Allionii var. Tournefortii beschreibt, 

 die er schon am Ende dieser Arbeit und w^iterhin in Histoire des PL 

 Dauph. 1787 zur Art erhebt." It is not ti-ue that Villars describes a 

 V. Allionii var. Tournefortii in the Prosp. Dauph. It is not true 

 that he raises it to a species at the end of that work. It is 

 not true that it is to be found as a species in Hist. PL Dau^Dh. 

 "What are the facts? In the Prospectus at p. 20 he describes 

 V. Allionii and assigns as a synonym, not as a variety, V. mas 

 repens pyrenaica folio rotundo liirsuta Tourn. The name var. 

 Tournefortii does not occur. There is no further allusion to this or to 

 an}^ other Veronica in the Prospectus. Nor is the name mentioned, 

 either as species or as variety, in the Fl. Delph. of 1785, But in 

 Hist. PL Dauph. ii. (1787) V. Allionii appears at p. 8 without 

 Tournefort's synonym, and at ^. 9 we find " B. V. Tournefortii 

 Prosp. 20 " with the synonym in question, and further on " la variete 

 B. ne differe de la precedente " (sc. V. Allionii) " que jmr etc." 

 This passage creates V. Allionii var. Tournefortii., if you will, but 

 not a species Veronica Tournefortii. No doubt it is Villars's own 

 erroneous citation of his Prospectus that has led to the careless 

 attribution to him of a specific name which is really due to Schmidt, 



