t18 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ FEBRUARY 
Dodonzus (p. 221) as ‘Bulbus Leucanthemus minor;’’ and 
Clusius (p. 188), who has described and figured Gagea Jutea as’ 
‘‘Q. pallido flore,” and another species of Gagea as ‘0. Pan- 
nonicum luteo flore.” The Dillenian genus Stellaris (Cat. plant. 
110) indicates the first distinction between the true species of 
Ornithogalum and those which Salisbury referred to his Gagea. 
It appears, according to the above statements, that the 
European genus Ornithogalum, including Gagea, was very well 
distinguished before Linnzeus undertook to write his Genera and 
Species plantarum. The rather superficial, but nevertheless quite 
striking, similarity between the small yellow-flowered species of 
Gagea (Ornithogalum of Linnzus) and the American Hypoxis 
made several authors from Ray to Gronovius confound these, so 
as to consider them all as belonging to Ornithogalum, until 
Linnzus himself was led to make the same mistake. Linnzus, 
however, corrected the mistake in the second edition of his 
Species plantarum, and his characterization of Hypoxis in Systema 
vegetabilium, ‘*Hypoxis corolla supera,” is sufficient to prove 
that he had obtained material finally for a correct description 
of the plant, inasmuch as he changed the ponesietd given 
specific name /zrsutum to erecta (Sp. pl. 2d ed. 439). As a 
matter of fact, Hypoxis erecta is not ‘‘hirsute,” but “pilose,” as 
Linnzus later on described it. That he named it erecta was 
evidently to distinguish it from the related species decumbens, 
sessilis, soboltfera, etc., all of which are hairy; while the former 
specific name, /ursutum, would have distinguished it at once from 
the species of Ornithogalum, of which only a few are slightly 
pubescent. Furthermore, that Linnzus had not seen the plant 
in aliving state, not even when he wrote the sixth edition of his 
Genera plantarum (1764), is evident from his marking the genus 
with a cross, which according to his preface means: Crucem ubi 
siccas solum habere potui! The plant Hypoxis, as stated above, 
was not cultivated in Europe until the year 1752, and very likely 
first in England. It seems, therefore, according to the preced- 
ing statements, that Linnaeus had no direct knowledge of 
Hypoxis until he published his second edition of se Caress 
