ESCHSCHOLTZIA. 209 
Bentham’s four, earlier than mine by fifty years, were so brief 
and otherwise inadequate, that none after him were able to rec- 
ognize the species ; and many authors confused all four with the 
original Æ. Californica, I think all of them are valid ; but the 
definitions in each case, are so loose as to cover not merely a 
Species but a group of them, as we now apprehend them. . 
The scientific force and value of that imperfect paper of 1885 
lay in its essential originality. The diagnoses were framed upon 
no model. I had discovered characters in Æschscholizia upon 
which species could be established. It was a discovery that had 
been waited for by my contemporaries. I had also indicated in 
terms that proved to have been intelligible, what the characters 
of certain species are. 
Linnaeus once upon a time introduced a chapter upon nomen- 
clature by giving a classification of nomenclators. He might also 
have given a classification of the classifiers of plants. Something 
like what follows would not have been far wrong. 
As to powers of taxonomic discernmment, there are a few who, 
having before them several related plants, can see, and do see, 
of their own discriminative intelligence, the differences that 
Separate them. 
There is a much larger class of those who, in the same case, 
Seem blinded by the resemblances which these related things so 
strongly bear to one another, and cannot see the differences at 
all distinctly until some other has pointed out those differences 
one by one, Then, these too can see. 
There is a third class, consisting of such as can not see a 
thing that is before their eyes and has been pointed out. — 
Nor may one quite exclude from the category of botanists the 
blind who are so because they will not see; among whom are 
such as use a dilute botany as the medium of that invective 
and vituperation by which they would avenge personal injuries, 
Teal or imaginary. 
When in 1886 Dr. Gray, with specimens before him, under- 
took his patient and fair-minded investigation of that monograph 
of which he had at first spoken more or less disparagingly, it is 
