154 THE SCOTTISH BOTANICAL REVIEW 



Linnaeus' " Flora Anglica." 

 By G. Claridge Druce, M.A., F.L.S. 



Recently suggestions have been made to use the above 

 work as a help in fixing the determination of some of the 

 more doubtful plants in the " Species Plantarum. " ^ 



I feel strongly that few advantages can result from such a 

 course, and that its adoption might lead to greater confusion 

 than even now prevails in some instances with the aggregate 

 species of Linnaeus. 



Let us consider what the " Flora Anglica" is. Linnaeus 

 himself had but the most general idea of the British flora, 

 his knowledge being almost entirely second-hand, and he had 

 not the opportunity of seeing any large number of its dried 

 plants. Therefore, when he attempted to put his binomials 

 to the plants enumerated in Dillenius' edition of Ray's 

 "Synopsis " of 1724, he could have had little or no critical 

 knowledge of the plants in it. As to those species which were 

 common in Europe and to Vv^hich the synonyms or names of 

 the Bauhins, etc., were attached, he could surmise their 

 names with some degree of accuracy ; but when he attempted 

 to name the new plants inserted in this edition by Dillenius 

 he often made the most appalling errors, not only of species, 

 but even of genera and natural orders. 



Had nothing else been wanting as evidence of the untrust- 

 worthiness of this work, the list " Dubia," at its end, would be 

 amply sufficient to demonstrate it; no fewer than 120 plants, 

 many of these good species, are included which Linnaeus 

 failed to identify, and this in itself would appear sufficient 

 reason to prevent the " Flora Anglica" being worth serious 

 consideration. But this is by no means the whole of the case. 

 Most readers of the ' ' Flora Anglica " would believe, from the 

 list of " Dubia " being given, that these and the named plants 

 in it exhausted all the plants of the " Synopsis," but this is 

 by no means the case. There are besides over three hundred 



^ I thoroughly recognise the difficulty of refusing (if indeed there is a necessity) 

 to recognise the " Centuria " and " Flora Anglica " as a valid publication of new 

 specific names, but what I deprecate is the idea of using either work to limit or 

 even elucidate the species in the first edition of the " Species Plantarum "when no 

 essential change has been made in the second edition of the same work. 



