19G riTTONIA. 



and this because the most emiueut critics of aiieieiit botany 

 failed to identify Kerkis; so, while the name is as old as 

 any, Linnaeus alone can \yith certainty be accredited as the 

 author of it in its current application.. There is, indeed, a 

 pre-Liniigean name which is applicable to it with certainty, 

 Siliqnastrum of Castor Durantes ( 1585) . This learned 

 Roman botanist, convinced that this type could not be iden- 

 tified with any genus of the ancients-, gave it the name Sili- 

 qnasiriim—oxie which I have little doubt will be tal;en up as 

 the lawful one some day instead of Cercis. But, it is impos- 

 sible to turn many pages of my book without meeting fresh 

 instances of ancient names credited to modern authors for 

 the same reason. Lotus is credited to Tournefort because 

 the ancients had several Loti, and Tournefort is responsible 

 for the modern application of the name. Melilotus is another 

 in the same category, credited to Morison for a like reason. 

 Bnt there is no question that the Glijcyrrhiza of Dioscovides 

 and of the Flora Franciscana are generically identical ; in a 

 word, 1 have written the names of classical writers only after 

 such of their genera as have been conceded to them by a 

 consensus of the critics who have dealt with that subject. 



But Br. Britton continues : 



" The ancients did not use the names in the generic sense 

 of Tournefort, Linnaeus and others of about their time, but 

 in most cases, at least, as mere appellations for plants." 



I grant the impossibility that the ancients should have 

 applied names in the generic sense of any generation of 

 modern botanists ; because no two or three leading botanists 

 of any age have yet b^en found with a generic sense in com- 

 mon. The Tournefortian sense of genera and the Linn^ean 

 are at opposite extremes. A single genus of Linmeus will 

 contain from two to a half-dozen genera of Tournefort or of 

 the average nineteenth century botanist But perhaps I <\o 

 not clearly apprehend my friendly critic's meaning. Did he 

 wish to say that the ancients had no sense of genera, and did 

 never apply their names as generic ? I am not willing ta 

 entertain a suspicion even, that such a view could be held, 



