TYPE OF THE GENUS PANICUM O1 
ilaicum Linn. The other group is then the residue though at 
present containing the larger number of species, and as it has never 
to my knowledge received a name one should be given it. 
Linnaeus, neither in the Species Plantarum of 1753 nor in 
the Genera Plantarum of 1754 indicated which species he con- 
sidered the type of his composite group. His genera were usually 
so heterogeneous that an average representative plant could not 
have served as such, but in the Philosophia Botanica* he left us 
his impressions as to what his followers were to do should they 
find it necessary to break up his so called genera into their original 
natural genera. We are justifled then in appealing to Linnaeus 
at his own suggestion or direction for the method to be used and 
the only reasonable one for such a procedure as the segregation of 
a genus. By the study of the pre-Linnaean authors it is not 
difficult to pick out the type species, especially when we can trace 
the plants back to the author who first named or discovered them. 
Dr. E. L. Greenet has pointed out this method, in the case, for 
instance of the genus Draba, and often this way is the only one for 
arriving at the correct idea of the types. If then for no other 
reason than this, the study of pre-Linnaean works has become an 
indispensible requisite for taxonomists, even for such as conform 
blindly to the 1753 “starting point.” Study of post-Linnaean 
authors helps only when we are sure that they conform to the 
reasonable method of returning to the genera held by botanists 
prior to 1753. If the authors afterwards made blunders without 
designating types then the mistakes are to be corrected by the 
appeal to the older writers. 
The type of the genus Panicum and the plant to which the name 
Panicum was first applied by Pliny is indisputably the plant 
which Linnaeus and others before him called Panicum italicum. 
A survey of the pre-Linnaean authors leaves no doubt whatever 
of this fact.f Though Caesalpinus says that the derivation .of 
* Linnaeus, C., Philosophica Botanica 1st ed. 1751 also 2nd ed. 1755 
pp 197, 198 in both. 
{ Greene, E. L., Pittonia Vol. 4, p. 203. 
t Panicum Italicum,. sive panicula majore, Bauhin, C. Pinax, 27. 
Panicum, Dodonaeus R. Pempt. p. 497-498. Panicum sativum Cusa, Lugd 
Panicum vulgare Clusius C., Hist. Panicum indicum Tabernaemontanus, 
_ J. T., Kreutterbuch. (17625) p. 639. also Gerard's Herbal. Panicum Caes- 
alpinus, A. De Plantis (1583) p. 189. Panicum Marcellus Vergilius. Com. 
Ped. Diosce. 1529. p. 239. Panicum Herm. Barbarus Coroll. in Diose. (1530) 
