Constantine Samuel Rafinesque. 107 



cations which have neither scientific value nor authority. 

 His book takes its proper place as a literary curiosity; 

 it will, at the same time, remain a monument to the 

 most foolish episode in his botanical career. 



OTHER BOTANICAL WORK. 



The penchant for genus-making, which was so marked 

 in Rafinesque, seems to have had full swing in his 

 botanical nomenclature. Not only did he emphasize 

 minor differences, but he even closely scanned the 

 descriptions of others, and, without seeing the plants 

 themselves, erected on these formal written or printed 

 diagnoses his own generic names. That he was often 

 wrong could be said with truth; but that he was often 

 right is equally true. He had little sympathy with the 

 artificial systems that prevailed during the early part 

 of the century. He saw relationships that others were 

 unwilling to grant him. In his reviews of the published 

 work of other authors he employed his characteristic 

 methods to an alarming extent; some of the genera 

 which observers proposed he threw out of his system, 

 on the ground that he had himself originally described 

 them under other names. That this method should 

 bring upon him the severe criticisms of those whose 

 work he treated thus is by no means surprising, but his 



