58 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



at which it is said that SaHsbury was present — by the production 

 of the botanical portion of the volume On the Cultivation of 

 . . . tJie ProteecB (1809), the ostensible author of which was 

 Joseph Knight." But the treatment of which Salisbury com- 

 plained antedated this, and it may even have been that he con- 

 sidered he was but repeating, on a larger scale, the action of 

 Smith towards himself. f 



At a later period I pointed out (op. cit. 1914, p. 46) that the 

 plant we had been accustomed to call Bomulea Cohmincs would 

 have to take the earlier specific name parviflora, it having been 

 described as Ixia parviflora by Salisbury in his Prodromus (1796). 

 It then occurred to me that it might be worth while to examine 

 Salisbury's work more closely, and this I have now done with 

 results that seem to justify publication. 



The most notable of these is the discovery that Salisbury's 

 elaboration of the genus Ixia (pp. 33-39) has been almost entirely 

 ignored, not only by his contemporaries but also by recent 

 writers. Of this genus, which at the time of his writing was 

 fashionable in cultivation, Salisbury describes and names thirty- 

 two species. Of these the first two were by Linnaeus, and are 

 indeed always, placed under Crocus ; the third is I. parviflora 

 already mentioned. Eor ten, previously published descriptions 

 are cited ; but new names are given to most of them in accord- 

 ance with Salisbury's practice throughout the book, which he 

 explains and justifies in the preface (vi-viii), of substituting other 

 names for those in the accepted nomenclature which he con- 

 sidered inappropriate. Seven described as new have been taken 

 up, usually as synonyms, in subsequent publications. The 

 remaining twelve,! save for the citation of their names from the 

 Prodromus in the Index Kewensis, have been entirely ignored. 

 They find no place in Gawler's list of " The Natural Order 

 Eusatce. " (Ann. Bot. i. 29, 1804), nor in the same author's 

 Iridearmn Genera (1827), published under his later name Bellenden 

 Ker ; they are not referred to in Mr. J. G. Baker's Handbook of 

 the Iridece (1892), nor in his monograph of the order in Flora 

 Capensis, vi. (1896) ; in the two last there is no evidence that the 

 Prodromus itself was consulted. It is more than likely that some 

 of these twelve species would now be regarded as synonyms or 

 relegated to other genera, but the early date of Salisbury's book 

 renders it probable that some at least of his specific names would 

 take precedence of those at present in use. In thus calling the 

 attention of future monographers to these overlooked species, it 

 may be useful to add that vol. viii of the collection of Salisbury's 



* See Journ. Bot. 1886, 296. 



t See torn. cit. 50 : Paracl. Lond. t. 117 (1868). In his copy of Salisbury's 

 Paradisus Londinensis Smith scribbled an epigram which I am not sure has 

 been printed : 



" What malice lurks beneath this fair disguise 

 Satan once more steals into Paradise. 

 But now how plausible soe'er his tale is 

 We always take his words cum giano salts. ''^ 

 J Their names are ambigua, concinna, conspicna, erosa, fallax, fugax, 

 Uneata, viutabilis, propijiqua, reticularis, socialis, tardijlora. 



