336 LINN^US. 



scription he gives of his sida, will probably agree 

 with me that it belongs to our nymphsea, and in- 

 deed to the white- flowered kind. You, without 

 any reason, give that name to the malvinda ; and 

 so in various other instances concerning ancient 

 names ; in which I do not, like Burmann, blame 

 you for introducing new names, but for the bad ap- 

 plication of old ones. If there were, in these cases, 

 any resemblance between your plants and those of 

 the ancients, you might be excused ; but there is not. 

 Why do you, p. QS, derive the word medica from 

 the virtues of the plant, when Pliny, book xviii. 

 chap. 16, declares it to have been brought from Me- 

 dia, &c.? 



" I fear I have angered you by saying, as you ob- 

 serve in your last, so much against your system of 

 arrangement. Nevertheless, I could say a great 

 deal more, and should be able to prove to you that 

 you separate and tear asunder several genera nearly 

 related to each other. But this is not my aim, as I 

 value your friendship too much." 



In another letter, dated May 16, 1737:. he writes 

 as follows : — ^'^ I must say a word concerning sta- 

 mens and styles, as being unfit to found a system of 

 arrangement upon ; not only because they vary as 

 much as flowers and seed-vessels, but because they 

 are hardly to be discerned, except by yourself, and 

 such lynx-eyed people ;* and in my judgment, 

 every scheme of classification off'ers violence to na- 

 ture. Notwithstanding all this, I applaud and 

 congratulate you, in the highest degree, for having 



* A singular objection, remarks Sir James E. Smith, from the 

 great sharp-siglited cryptogamist ! 



