xxviii INTRODUCTION. 



thus preserving specimens sent with wrong names on their 

 labels. First, when the locality has been actually recorded in 

 books for the wrong plant, the contradiction between label and 

 specimen will yield the clue to correct the mis-records ; and in 

 this way a mislabelled specimen may be found more valuable 

 than one rightly labelled. In other cases, when several labels 

 meet together, all alike assigning the same wrong specific or 

 varietal name to several specimens of the same species or 

 variety, the inference becomes unavoidable and the suspicion 

 warranted, that a like misnomer may have occurred in other 

 analogous instances, where now only a printed record remains 

 to guide our judgment. 



Again, let an example or two be given in illustration of such 

 wide misnomers. In the herbarium under consideration there is 

 a specimen of Stellaria yraminea, sent to the Botanical Society 

 of London labelled as Linum catharticum ; and more strangely, 

 the label is initialed by the then Curator and Secretary of the 

 Society (both deceased) in order to certify the correctness of the 

 name. Of course, this specimen with its label finds place in 

 the herbarium simply as an instructive curiosity ; but how easy 

 for some self-conceited or malicious detractor to make a parade 

 of his own superiority by pretending to correct an obvious 

 blunder as if it had been shared in by the owner of the 

 herbarium ! 



A rather curious form of mislabelling arises through some 

 similarity of name in sound or in meaning. For instance, 

 Poterium Sanguisorba mislabelled Sanguisorba officinalis, and 

 that done by a very .good and well-known botanist. So, an 

 example of Potentilla rupestris until lately might be seen labelled 

 as Potentilla alpesttis, and localised on the Breadalbane Moun- 

 tains ; the specimen and locality attributed to Dr. Greville. 

 The false locality got into print during the life-time of that 

 accurate and very estimable botanist, who disclaimed it alto- 

 gether. The specimen had come to the Botanical Society of 

 London, through the hands of a lady equally a member of the 



