TRADITIONAL INTERPRETATION OF LTNNEAN NOMENCLATURE. 195 



of the rule of priority in favor of a usage, however old and 

 widespread, will not hesitate to insist that the customary 

 application of the Linnean name Spergula pentandra be 

 changed, and that a new name be created for the plant which 

 up to the present has been considered the typical form. The 

 appellation Spergula Morisonii must then disappear from 

 nomenclature. 



Perhaps my readers will be tempted to charge me with 

 recurring to the method of the polemic, who gratuitously attri- 

 butes extravagant views to his adversaries, in order to have 

 the malicious and readily obtained pleasure of disputation. 



But I do not at all overstate the case. The aforesaid pro- 

 position has actually been made by Timbal-Lagrave, as M. 

 Ant. Legrand tells us in his StaiisUque Botanique dii Forez^ 

 p. 92: "M. Timbal-Lagrave points out to me that Spergula 

 Morisonii is the only species occurring in Sweden, and that 

 it, therefore, is the true Sp. pentandra of Linne. He pro- 

 poses to restore the Linnean name to the plant of Borean, 

 and to give to Sp. pentandra of French authors the name of 



I note with pleasure that M. Legrand has had the Avisdom 

 not to follow the suggestion of the Toulouse botanist and that 

 he has maintained the long accepted nomenclature, not only 

 in the Slrdisiique Botanique du Forez, but again in his 



Flora du Berry, published in 1887 (p. 42). 



In my pamphlet on the polymorphism of the Bupleura, 

 I have shown that the significance of certain specific names 

 has been interpreted falsely because the sense of these appel- 

 lations has been restricted to the particular form found in the 

 Linnean herbarium, without taking account of the references 

 given in the Species Plantarum. The illustrious Swede, I 

 pointed out, not being able to foresee the use which would 

 later be made of his collection of dried plants, prepared it with 

 extreme negligence, and very often placed therein rare plants 

 only, omitting to add the common forms. It is through rely- 

 ing upon the fallacious data of this collection that certain 

 botanists have come to restrict to a particular form of each, 



