Helleborlne Hill or Epipactis Adans.? 



G. Claridge Druce 



1 first suggested the above change of names in the Annals of 

 Scottish Nat. Hist. 48. 1905, because during my work at the 

 herbaria of Morison and Dillenius I became saturated with pre- 

 Linnean names and found how often and how needlessly Linnaeus 

 had changed well-defined generic names. The above is an ex- 

 ample. The Helleborme of Dioscorides has been attributed by 

 various authors to different species, but the figure of the plant 

 representing it in the plate 155 of the very rare copy of the 

 Vienna Ms. from Constantinople, which we have at Oxford, 

 appears toh^ Asphodelus ramosus. Turner (Herball 128. 1562) 

 quotes Dioscorides under the name Satyrioniox the British typical 

 species {H. latifolid), Geraide (Herball 358. 1597) describes 

 three species; the first Helleborine refers to H. latifolia^ the second 

 is Cephalaftthera Damasommn^ and the third is probably Helle- 

 borine pahistris, Parkinson (Theatrum 218. 1640) has eight Elle- 

 borines, one being Cypripeditwi^ while Caspar Bauhin (Pinax 187. 

 1 67 1 ) under Helleborine has ten species. These are mainly 

 adopted by Ray (Historia Plantarum 2: 1230. 1688), who 

 describes Helleborine and distinguishes the genus by '* Radice 

 fibrosa foliis nervosis ab Orchide dififert/' and puts in it thir- 

 teen species, which include the plants more recently called Epi- 

 pactis^ Cephalanthera^ and Cypripediiun^ but excludes those with 

 tuberous roots called Serapias by Linnaeus, which Ray puts with 

 Orchis. 



In his Synopsis . . . Stirpium Britannicarum, 174. 1690, six 

 species are included : 



No. I, being H. latifolia (All.) as of the Historia, 



No. 2, which = no. 5 of the Historia = H. airoptupitrea (Raf.). 



No. 3, which = no. 6 of the Historia = Cephalanthera Daum- 

 sonium (Mill) and partly C. longifolia^ so far as the Westmoreland 

 locality is concerned. 



543 



