94 PITTONIA. 



in science ; and it seems to imply that real and scientific 

 distinctions of genera are unimportant. It is a kind of pro- 

 test wLicli one easily tolerates so long as it liails from the 

 usual quarter ; but it comes with bad grace from the pro- 

 fessional botanist, who naturally represents, not the popular 

 side whence arises the clamor against what is at worst only 

 an inconvenience, but the side of scientific fact, and of literary 

 justice and accuracy. He, the true botanist, the public 

 instructor, the author of books, falls below the proper dignity 

 of his station, if, taking part in noisy outcry, he declines from 

 the caase of the original investigator, the scholar and the 

 critic, to whose class he belongs if lie is worthy of his place. 

 From the first citations I shall make in illustration of Dr. 

 Bigelow's conservatism in nomenclature, it may appear that, 

 while he was himself a good observer, he profited nothing by 

 what his American compeers Lad, contemporaneously with 

 him, been doing in the line of the original and the critical. 

 He may have seemed to hold something very like a disdainful 

 attitude toward such men as "Walter, Muhlenberg and Xuttall, 

 when he restored to the wild Touch-me-nots of his region the 



•ejected name Imimiiens noli tangere, after those authors 

 had so clearly shown that we have no J. noli tangere in tJie 

 United States, but two very distinct and new species in its 

 stead. Six, at least, of NuttalFs newly proposed genera fall 

 m his way, Lepiandra, Comandra, EpipJicgns, Ampliicarpa, 

 Cnrya and Microstrjlis j and it is amusing to observe that he 

 rejects them all, save Le pi cindr a—ih^ only one of the sis 

 whicli subsequent authors have failed to approve and confirm. 

 Nor do the rest of Dr. Bigf^low's American colleagues receive 

 higher compliment. ^Caidopliylhim and Anychia and Ampe- 



^ - and Accrntes of 



±.lhott-all these have their species remanded to the old 

 places ^vhich they hold in the works of Linmeus and of 

 Willdenow. 



And yet our author can hardly fall under suspicion of any 

 particular superciliousness toward his fellow-laborers in New 

 i^ork, Pennsylvania or elsewhere on American soil ; for he 



Michaux 



