CIMICIFUGA 57 



si< eration, and C. fetida of Eastern Europe. Had Lin- 

 r Vius made a genus for these two, he would have had a 

 ; taus containing two plants belonging to entirely dif- 



rent orders of his artificial system. He did, in after 

 years, separate the European species from Actaea under 

 the generic name Cimicifuga, but he did not include 

 our plant in that genus. 



"The Linnaean name, Actoea racemosa, was retained 

 till the beginning of the 19th century by all writers ex- 

 cepting Walter, who called the plant Actoea monogyna. 



"It was Pursh who first referred it to the genus Cim- 

 icifuga which Linnaeus had established for the Euro- 

 pean plant. Michaux had previously referred to this 

 genus our mountainous species (Cimicifuga americana), 

 which he discovered. Pursh, in addition to this species, 

 having seen our northwestern species, (Cimicifuga alata, 

 that he considered identical with the European species, 

 Cimicifuga fetida), noticed the great similarity of the 

 three plants, and placed them all in a common genus. 

 The plant under consideration he called Cimicifuga 

 Serpentaria. 



"Four years later, Nuttall, in enumerating the then 

 known plants of the United States, restored the old 

 specific name, calling it Cimicifuga racemosa. In the 

 same year, but after the publication of Nuttall's work, 

 (as is evident from his mentioning that work), Barton 

 used the same name, evidently taken from Nuttall's 

 work, but without giving him credit for it. Hence De 

 Candolle and several other writers have incorrectly 

 referred the authorship to Barton. It is remarkable, 

 however, that in all the works of both Torrey and Gray, 

 and in most recent works on American botany, the 

 authorship of the name has been credited to a botanist 



