TRADITIONAL INTERPEETATION OF LINNEAN NOMENCLATURE. 199 



*'Hoc tamen variat magnitudine, cum et caule sesqni- 

 cubitali et spica semipalmari inveniatur; provenit locis sax- 

 osis, majits quidem in monte Crentzacho; minus vero in 

 monte Wasserfall dicto." — C. Bauhin, Prodromos Theairi 

 Botanici^ p. 6, xii. 



The description in two lines given by Linne in the Species 

 Planiarum is still less explicit: 



^' Agrostts capillaris. — A panicula capillari patente, caly- 



cibus subulatis sequalibus hispidiusculis coloratis, flosculis 



muticis. 



"Royen Lngdb.^ 59. Dalibard FL Paris., 23. — A panicula 



tenuissima Flor. Lapp., No. 45, Gramen montanum, panicula 



spadicea delicatiore C. Bauh, Pincix 3, Frodr. 6, xii. Scheu- 



chzer, Gramin., 129. 



" Habitat in Europse pratis.*' 



From this incomplete description, which is applicable to 

 every species of the group, it would be very diflScult to recog- 

 nize our AgrosUs vulgaris with certainty. 



Yet, since Linne said that Agr. capillaris grew " in the 

 meadows of Europe," he evidently was not speaking of a rare 

 plant, only known as occurring in certain localities of Por- 

 tugal and Spain, but, clearly, of the common AgrosUs 

 described by Caspar Bauhin, and afterwards mentioned under 

 the same rubric by Eoyen, by Dalibard and by Scheuchzer 



who are cited by Linne. 



On account of the insufficiency of the descriptions, it was 

 absolutely necessary, during preceding centuries, that the 

 knowledge of plants should be directly taught by the masters 

 to their pupils, then transmitted little by little by the latter 

 to other botanists. It is surprising that Smith, living at the 

 end of the 18th century, and who ought consequently to have 

 known better than we, the necessity for this didactic dissemin- 

 ation of knowledge, should have forgotten the importance of 

 tradition, without which the greater part of the Linnean 

 diagnoses would very often be insoluble enigmas. 



Thus Wulfen, relying upon the long-held tradition which 

 existed from 1753 up to, and even beyond, 1796, had good 



