27 



but five families in that work, viz. Ericeae, Polemoniaceae, 

 Scrophulariaceae, and Labiatae, and constituted but one of his 

 several major labors. It is to Bcntham's world-wide familiarity 

 with plant families and their finer composition, crystallized in 

 his co-authorship with Hooker of the Genera Plantarum, that 

 this fresh approach to the naming of plant species is probably 

 due in a large measure. This cosmopolitan familiarity, then, 

 coupled with his rule of designating characteristic attributes of 

 a species, especially of habit, has given rise to such unfaded 

 botanical names as are otherwise infrequent in the annals of 

 descriptive botany. 



If some instances of this practice are examined in the light of 

 the plants referred to by such alluding specific names, the pre- 

 cision of choice on Bentham's part becomes evident. Of the 

 several examples that have come to notice among the plants of 

 California described by Bentham there may be listed the follow- 

 ing from the three families, Polemoniaceae, Labiatae, and 

 Scrophulariaceae : 



(a) Aegochloa {Navarretia) atractyloides Benth. Refers to the 

 composite genus Atractylis of the Mediterranean region and 

 temperate Asia, numbering some fifteen species. The Mediter- 

 ranean Atractylis cancellata L. is suggestive of the Californian 

 Navarretia in habit and congested inflorescence though the 

 heads in the composite are larger. 



(b) Gilia pharnaceoides Benth. Alludes to the resemblance 

 of habit to the genus Pharnaceum of the Aizoaceae of South 

 Africa. Particularly does the Gilia species recall the habit of 

 Pharnaceum dichotomum L.f. In that species the arrangement 

 and shape of the leaves is very close. 



(c) Pogogyne zizyphoroides Benth. The habit recalls another 

 menthaceous genus Zizyphora of the Mediterranean region and 

 central Asia, especially such species as Zizyphora tenuior L. of 

 Persia which has the flowers arranged in close-set "verticel- 

 lasters" in the manner of the Californian Pogogyne. 



(d) Stachys ajugoides Benth. Habit suggestive of the Old 

 World labiate genus Ajuga which Bentham characterized as 

 "herbae annuae, perennes vel vix basi suffruticosae, saepe pro- 

 cumbentes vel adscendentes, nunc stoloniferae" (Lab. Gen. et 

 Sp. 690. 1835). It is this "procumbent" aspect which character- 

 izes the Californian Stachys. This species has been variously 



