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Some account of the (Enanthe pimpinelloides, and peucedanifolia of 

 English Authors. By Hewett C. Watson, Esq., F.L.S. 



Much confusion and consequent misapplication of names occur in 

 the writings of English botanists, previous to the present year of 

 1844, in relation to the plants above-mentioned. Hudson described 

 a single species only, under the name of " pimpinelloides ;" having 

 either applied this name to the wrong species, or confounded two 

 species under the one name. Smith and succeeding British authors 

 kept the same name in their works, usually or always applying it to 

 the wrong species also. But they likewise distinguished a second 

 species, to which the name "peucedanifolia" has been universally 

 applied until the present year. 



Meanwhile, several continental authors were referring the two spe- 

 cies figured in * English Botany,' 347 and 348, under the above names, 

 the one to Lachenalii of Gmelin, and the other to silaifolia of Bieber- 

 stein. English authors were slow to adopt these names ; and in one 

 instance, I think, correctly so. In the fourth edition of the 'British 

 Flora,' 1838 (I have not the earlier editions now by me). Sir W. J. 

 Hooker still kept to the two names of English Botany, but observed 

 of the plants, " they are certainly not the species so called by De 

 Candolle, and other continental writers." Notwithstanding this ob- 

 servation, the same two names were still repeated in the Edinburgh 

 Catalogue, in 1841, and also in the fifth edition of the 'British Flora,' 

 in 1842. 



1 think that the first decided change in the right direction, was 

 made in the ' Manual of British Botany,' in 1843. Following conti- 

 nental botanists, Mr. Babington applied the name of Lachenalii to the 

 species described by Smith, and figured in English Botany, under 

 the name of pimpinelloides. At the same time he fell into the very 

 excusable error of rejecting the true pimpinelloides wholly. Yet 

 specimens were then to be seen in several English herbaria; although, 

 it would seem, unknown to Mr. Babington. Specimens of the true 

 Linnsean pimpinelloides had been sent to the Botanical Society of 

 London, correctly labelled by Mr. Edwin Lees, in 1839 and 1840 ; 

 but this was " throwing pearls," &c. I had myself collected the 

 same species, in a very young state, in the Isle of Wight, in May of 

 1840; and afterwards obtained a full series of specimens by cultivating 

 the plant in my garden. The rejection of pimpinelloides wholly from 

 the ' Manual of Botany,' induced me to compare these garden speci- 

 mens of a native species with the true pimpinelloides, in the herbarium 



