MALTA INTOLUCRATA. 65 



MALVA INYOLUCRATA. 



Involucred Mallow. 

 Linnean Class— Monadelphia. Order— Polyandria. Natural Order -Malvacejb. 



The frequent changes of nomenclature have long been the opprobrium of Natural 

 History in general, and of Botany in particular; and there can be no doubt that 

 these incessant variations, together with the unfortunate propensity of some 

 Botanists to attach to newly discovered plants names of the most barbarous and 

 dissonant character, have done much to retard the study of the science. Let us, 

 however, at once admit that these changes, although occasionally the result of caprice, 

 are mainly due to the necessarily imperfect and progressive nature of all human 

 acquirements. Thus it sometimes happens — and when the number of inde- 

 pendent observers in the same field of science is considered, this will excite 

 no astonishment— that the same plant is discovered by different Botanists, each of 

 whom claims the honour of conferring its distinctive appellation ; in other instances, 

 two observers appear to have been equally possessed by the desire of perpetuating 

 the memory of some individual eminent for his attainments in, or services to science, 

 and have, unknown to each other, affixed his name to different plants, as in the 

 case of Hugelia, named in compliment to Baron Hugel, which, in this country, has 

 been applied by Bentham to a plant of the Phlox tribe; but in France, was 

 bestowed by Eeichenbach on one of the TJmbelliferce, known here as the DkUscus 

 cceruleus. Not unfrequently it is found, on a close examination, that plants 

 previously included in the same genus, differ in some of their characters; and where 

 this is really the case, no one can question the propriety of separating them, 

 whatever may be the inconvenience attending on a change of names ; but as 

 Botanists are by no means agreed in their estimation of the value of minute 

 differences, it often happens that distinctions which, by one authority, are considered 

 sufficiently important to justify a separation, are by others regarded as of no value ; 

 or it may be, that while the difference is recognized, the name itself is ignored as 

 inappropriate and another attached to it, the result being that the same plant is 

 found in our catalogues under four or five different synonymes, to the infinite 

 bewilderment of all but he adept in botanical studies. Even when the new 

 genus may have been at first adopted, the subsequent disco very of some intermediate 

 species has often shewn the separation to be untenable, and the old name has been 

 finally reverted to as the most appropriate. 



The history of the genus Nuttallia (commemorative of the distinguished 

 American Botanist, Nuttall) affords us an illustration of some of the above remarks. 



5 



