Botanical Writings of Rafinesque. 233 



for upon the whole, we place quite as much confidence in his de- 

 terminations as in Rafinesque's corrections. But we do say, that 

 there is no reason for supposing that Robin has been more suc- 

 cessful in the instances which Rafinesque has adopted, and upon 

 which his new species of existing genera rest ; and we confi- 

 dently state, that it is impossible, with all the knowledge we now 

 possess of the botany of that region, to recognize one species out 

 of fifty, with tolerable satisfaction, from Robin's descriptions, 

 which must nevertheless have been drawn from the more com- 

 mon plants of Louisiania ; and we never heard of the re-discov- 

 ery of any one of these new genera and species, although many 

 intelligent botanists and dihgent collectors reside in, or have since 

 visited that region. The Flore Louisiane, in the state Robin 

 left it, could do no harm, and whatever information it contained 

 was quite as available as at present. As improved by a botanist 

 who had never been within a thousand miles of Louisiana, and 

 who at that period, could scarcely have seen a dozen Louisianian 

 plants, the only result has been to burthen our botany with a list 

 of nearly two hundred species semper incognitce. There can, we 

 think, be but one opinion as to the consideration which is due to 

 these new genera and species : they must be regarded as ficti- 

 tious, and unworthy of the slightest notice.* 



As the works of Nuttall, Elliott, Barton, and others appeared, 

 Mr. Rafinesque published critical notices of them in the American 

 Monthly Magazine. He soon after collected and condensed these 

 criticisms, and republished them, with some additions, in the 

 Journal de Physique for 1819, with the title of Remarques cri- 

 tiques et synonomiques sur les Ouvrages de MM. Pursh, Nuttall, 

 Elliott, etc. In these many suggestions of more or less impor- 



* We are constrained, by the length to which this article has extended, to omit 

 a series of extracts we hud prepared in fuller confirmation of our remarks. — We 

 are bound to mention the excuse Rafinesque offers for this production. In the 

 Herbarium Rafinesquianum, p. 17, he says : " I have been reproached wrong!)' to 

 have published my Florula Louisiana out of Robin, without specimens; but Grono- 

 vius did so with Clayton, and Willdenow with Loureiro. Robin's herbarium may 

 be seen in France as well as Michaux's," etc. — The case of Loureiro's Flora Co- 

 chin-Chinensis may perhaps be something to the purpose; but every botanist 

 knows, or may easily know, that the assertion is altogether untrue as regards the 

 Flora Virginica of Gronovius, who had the specimens as well as the notes of Clay- 

 ton in his possession. We find no evidence that Robin brought back a single dri- 

 ed specimen to France : he professes to have drawn his descriptions from the living 

 plants. 



