1897} HYPOXIS ERECTA LINN. 117 
the genus Hypoxis. It is also very doubtful whether Royen 
really had this plant in cultivation in the botanical garden at 
Leyden as early as 1740, since it has been stated that Hypoxis 
was not cultivated in Europe until 1752, and, as far as can be 
ascertained, first in England. These four citations of the works 
by Plukenet, Petiver, Royen, and Gronovius constituted, there- 
fore, the only literary sources to which Linnzus had access at 
the time of his writing the first edition of Species plantarum, at 
least so faras concerns Ornithogalum hirsutum. The two preced- 
ing species, O. /uteum and O. minimum, were both well known to 
him, as he cites these from his own works (Flora suecica 96, and 
Hortus Cliffortianus 124). He also quotes Bauhin’s Ornithogalum 
luteum and O. luteum minus as synonyms of his O. luteum and O. 
minimum, now known as Gagea lutea and G. minima. There is, 
therefore, some reason to believe that Linnzus had not seen 
Hypoxis, either in a living or dried state, and that his first specific 
diagnosis, so closely resembling those which he quotes, must have 
been merely transcribed from them with help from the illustra- 
tions before him, which did not indicate the inferior ovary and 
short stamens of Hypoxis. None of the descriptions with 
which he was acquainted differed in any essential respect from 
each other, or from the general understanding at that time of 
the genus Ornithogalum. The diagnosis in Gronovius (p. 37) 
was very likely the most influential with Linnzeus, so far as the 
relationship of the plant was concerned. 
The name Ornithogalum has an old history, and may be traced 
far back to the Greeks and Romans. Both Dioscorides (p. 541) 
and Plinius (21: chap. 62) mention an Ornithogalum with edible _ 
bulbs, but it is far from certain that their plant was identical - 
with the genus which now bears that name. Among the earliest 
authors who unmistakably described not only Ornithogalum but 
also Gagea may be mentioned Fuchs, who has illustrated and 
described “ Bulbus sylvestris” or “‘Oignon sauluaige” (p. 95); 
_ Lobelius (p. 72), who figures the same species of Gagea as 
_ Ornithogalum luteum, besides the true O. umbellatum, under the 
- mame “* nO. acacia minor,” "which is also described by : 
