36 PITTONIA, 



kind of character ^-Licli can always be relied upon ; and that 

 of color lias often been employed in diagnosis by the most 

 philosophical of modern botanists. If Linnaeus himself did 

 not formally employ it, he did by implication recognize it as 

 having value, lu another of his aphorisms (Fundamenta^ 

 No. 259), he requires that names shall be taken from such 

 characters only as are constant ; then, having passed judg- 

 ment against color as untrustworthy, he proceeds with a free 

 hand to name species according to color. The following are 

 some names to be found in his genus Lichen : L. fasco-aier, 

 airo-virens, afro-alhits, paUesccns, stihfitscuSy olivacens, 

 croccus and miniafus.^ Of coarse, in liclienology as well as 

 in mycology, color is of great value ; but Linniieus made no 

 exception of these ; and even in phanerogamic botany, his 

 usages in naming species were in the same manner in conflict 

 witli his rules. He found the color of corollas sufficiently 

 characteristic and entirely constant in the plants which he 

 named Lilium candidum, Lobelia cardinalis, Allium roseiim 



fl 



t, 



place/ of familiar species which are both named and charac- 

 terized by the color of their flowers. I may perhaps more 

 profitably adduce a few cases in which this very character 

 bears a value even higher than specific. 



In the Californian flora we have two or three scarlet- 



species iu which white-flowered individuals have been observed. Most 

 botani^its rigidly exclude them from any place in nomenclature ; and 

 this exclusion would be necessary even in the case of the many intensely 

 blue western larkspurs whose albinos are never white but always flesh- 

 color or pink. I have observed the pink-flowered freak in Delphlniiun 



decorum, iroUifolium, liesperium, Parryi, scafosum^ and I think in one or 



two more ; have learoed to expect it in any blue-tlowered species, and 

 should never think of naming them as varieties. 



^ That the Fundameuta were published before Linmeus had decided 

 upon binomialism signifies nothing. He never rescinded his aphorisms. 

 I)id he forget some of them ? 



= J. F. James, Bull, Torr. Club. xtL 268. 



