196 



EEYTHEA. 



and that usually tlie rarest, the application of the names 

 Ranunculus chcerophyllus (southern form flabellatus), 

 Hellehorus viridis (form orientalis), Bupleurum Odontites 

 (oriental form of B. aristatum), Glohularia vulgaris (form 

 from the Swedish Islands), Mellca ciliata (form of the north 



of Europe), etc., etc. 



I will now cite another example of the errors to which 

 those botanists are liable who accord a higher value to the 

 labels of the Linnean herbarium than to the descriptions and 

 references contained in the Sj)ecies Plantarum. The par- 

 ticular case of whicli I will now speak, relates moreover to the 

 question of priority raised apropos of Casialia, Buda, Tissa, 



land Spergula. 



Among the Graminese, there is none more widely dis- 

 tributed all over Europe than the Agrosiis called vulgaris 

 by Withering in his Arrangement of British Plants (3 ed. p. 

 132, published in 1796). In this case no one dare assert 

 that Linne did not know and did not name so common a plant. 

 I will venture further and say that the Linnean name is 

 Agrostis capillaris. Why then have authors unanimously 

 adopted the name Agrostis vulgaris, given by Withering in 

 1796, contrary to the so-called inviolable rule of priority? 



The instigator of this flagrant violation of Linnean tradi- 

 tion was this same Smith,* who, nevertheless, had the good 

 sense, some years later, to repudiate the useless innovations 

 proposed by his compatriot, Salisbury, apropos of NymphcBa, 

 During his revision of Linne's herbarium, which he had 

 carried in triumph from Upsala to London, Smith ascer- 

 tained that the sheet labelled Agrostis capillaris, carried, 

 not the plant which all botanists were calling by that name, 

 but a variety of it, which Linne had never described and of 

 which the origin is unknown. 



By the description and figure which have been given of it, 

 first by Smith {Icon, ined,, fasc. 3, tab. 54), then by Trinius 

 {Agrostidea, p. 109, Icon., tab. 25), it is seen to differ from 

 the type in its smaller stature, straighter and more glabrous 



4Sir J. E. Smith, mentioned earlier ia the pamphlet 



