142 CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 
corded them by the botanical public was, however, partly their own 
fault; for no one has a right to subordinate his own judgment to that of 
another, as I think they did to Britton’s, for the sake of financial support. 
Rydberg was a kindly Christian man, well liked by those who knew 
stead of acknowledging them and changing his course. This is partic- 
ularly evident in his silly Astragaloid genera. He was almost as bad a 
splitter as Greene, characterizing most of his species on single specimens 
without taking into consideration well known ecological factors, and 
without attempting to collect the intergrading material in the type lo- 
calities of his proposed species. He had no conception of genus, and a 
very poor one of species, and no conception of the effect of ecological 
conditions on species. How anyone co a botanist and neglect 
these things is a mystery. Rydberg’s first work, on Potentilla, was to me 
his best. He made too many species there, but the work was good in 
the main. 
There was a time in his early years when workers in the Bronx be- 
gan to swell out with what they considered justifiable pride at his won- 
derful insight and deep and original studies, but I punctured this bub- 
e by showing that all his so-called original work was simply giving 
new names to things that were discovered and published before he was 
born. Since that time we have been spared any more of this bunk. 
