2 : PITTONIA. 
that Linnzeus, erroneously combining as one species two 
plants which had often been proven distinct, assigned the 
historic name fullonum to the wrong type, aud then gave to 
the true fullonum the varietal name sativus. To put the case 
perhaps a little more plainly: the type which all early au- 
thors and most later ones had called silvestris he awkwardly 
called fullonum, then made the true fullonum a variety of 
that, but under the name sativus. Of course, if he had not 
himself ignored the law of priority ; if he had preserved the 
name fullonum for the type to which it had been given in 
the earliest period of botanical history, he would have done 
a reasonable and right thing, and there would have been no 
trouble about writing * D. fullonum, L.” Or, if he had ob- 
served priority in another way, by preserving the old name 
silvestris for that which he so perversely called D. fullonum, 
and then had appended the true fullonum to that as a var. ful- 
lonum, there would have been no difficulty. The two species. 
could have been segregated—as they were and will be—each 
retaining its proper specific appellation. Fortunately, the 
best of Linnsus' contemporaries had as little respect for his 
authority 1n matters of nomenclature as he himself had for 
the principle of priority; and Philip Miller at once set right 
the binary nomenclature of the Teasels under the law of 
priority; and the task was easy enough. But sinoe then, 
that has come to pass of which Miller had probably not the 
least apprehension, that the great majority of leading bot- 
anists have made Miller's Dictionary the real starting point in 
the nomenclature of the Dipsacus species in question. The 
following is a selection out of a large number of first-class 
authors who repudiate the page of Linneus, either openly 
citing Miller, or at least using the names as he applied them : 
Dirsacus FULLONUM, Mill. Dict. (1768). 
— ——- . Meneh, Meth. 491 (1794). 
saa ——- Willd. Sp. i. 543 (1798). 
eiie —— Smith, Fl. Brit. i. 168 (1800). 
