Dr. Smith'j- botanical Hijlovy of Mentha evgua. 19 



in this inftance been inftrumental in leading them aftray, by con- 

 fiding too heedlcfsly in my predeeefTors. 



At fome period between the piibhcation of the fiift edition of 

 Species Plantarum, 1753, and the Ccnluria iihi PLintaru?n, 175^ {yhn. 

 Acad. vol. iv. 297), Linnasus received from the late Mr. Philip Miller 

 of Chelfea two dried fpecimens of an apparent fpecies of Mentha 

 (mii)t), marked Mentha aquatica ex'igua I'ragl, lib. i. cap. 6. Upon 

 what authority Linnaeus confidered this as an Englith plant I 

 cannot precifely tell, nothing occurring on the fubject in Miller's 

 letteis of that period. Probably the above fynonym induced Lin- 

 nasus to believe this was the plant fo denominated in the third 

 edition of Ray's Synopjis^p. 23a, No. 2; and although he might rea- 

 dily perceive it was not the plant of Tragus, his figure being fo 

 very different, yet it might reafonably be prefumed that Miller, by 

 marking it fo decidedly, knew it to be the plant of Ray, or rather 

 of his editor Dillenius. Linnasus therefore without fcruple quotes 

 the SynopJiSf and at the fame time incautioufly copies frcwn thence 

 two fynonyms of Lobel and Fuchfius, which are both fo difTimilar 

 to the fpecimens then before him, that, with all my confidence in 

 his accuracy, I cannot help attributing his omifTion of the name 

 and page of Tragus, rather to carelefihefs than intention ; for the 

 figure of the latter is not more unlike the Mentha exigua than thofe 

 of Lobel and Fuchfius. Thus however it was introduced into the 

 Centuria ida Plantarum, zndSyJi, Nat. ed. x. andin 1763 made its ap- 

 pearance in the fecond edition of Species Plantarum, p. 806, the fpe- 

 cific character being taken from Miller's fpecimens, ftill preferved 

 in the Linnean Herbarium, duplicates of which are in the colledicn 

 of Miller himfelf, at prcfent belonging to Sir Jofeph Banks. 



Mr. Hudfon in the mean time publiflied the firft edition of his 

 Flora Anglica in 1762, and on the authority of the Cent. Plant. 



D a ■ mentions- 



