CONCERNING THE CITATION OF AUTHORS. 237 
the discoverer of our native Western World. There may have 
been those among our elders who could have instructed us 
that the Scandinavians had visited our shores some centuries 
in advance of the great Italian navigator, and that Columbus 
knew all that before he sailed. To compare events small with 
great, it is a German who ought to be credited with the pro- 
posing of binomial nomenclature; and Linnzus, the Scandi- 
navian, will be justly honored when we concede that he 
adopted this system from Rivinus, his predecessor. The 
German appears to have been quite as serious in his proposal 
of the method, as the Scandinavian was in his adoption of it, 
for he deemed it worth legislating upon, ordering that only 
adjective specific names should be employed, in which respect 
even Monch seems to have paid deference to Rivinus rather 
than to Linnæus, as the true founder of the system, for he 
rejects all the Linnæan personal and geographical names, 
substituting adjectives in place of them, in accordance with 
the requirements of the elder binomialist. 
In view of all the circumstances, and there are many more 
that might be named, we fail to see the least infringement of 
any principle, in citing pre-Linnæan authors of such binary 
names as are well known, or may easily be known, to have 
been in general use long before Linnæus blessed them with 
his approval. Nor are we alone in this view. A careful 
reading of the works of several prominent botanists of the 
last half-century, will reveal a number of such citations. - 
For any American who may possibly wish to enter the lists 
as against such usage, we would suggest that he correct, for 
it may need correcting, this pre-Linnæan binomial which he 
will find in Gray’s Manual and elsewhere: * Sparganium 
. minimum, Bauhin," for the name and the author are of the 
year 1623. 
