(2) l>. PRAIN. REVISION OF THE GENUS CHELIDONIUM. ••71 



round od comparing fchem that the groupe which the four Dames repre- 

 Benl are probable ail equally distinct, the characters which they exhibit 

 interosculate to such an extent that it seems absolutely aecessary to 



treat them as do more than distinct sections of a highly natural genus 

 to which, in a Doore comprehensive sensé than hitherto, the Dame (Jhe- 

 lidonium should be applied. 



The incidence of this naine Clielidonium lias been at ail times verv 

 variable. The plant known to the ancients as ysÀîoov.ov p£?a(Dioscorides) 

 or Chelidonia major (Pliny) was associated with another which is now 

 referred to Ranunculw. The taxonomists of the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries were, howerer, at one in rejecting this latter plant and 

 only the Papaveraceons species, under the name simply of Clielidonia, 

 used from the time of Brunfelsius (1537) to that of J. Bauhin (1651), 

 or more frequently under the name of Clielidonium majus, with or 

 without some further qualifying epithet, was retained in the genus. The 

 name Clielidonium majus 1 , first used by Fuchsius in 1543, having been 

 adopted by Linnœus in 1753 in the work from which our présent 

 system of nomenclature for species dates, is that still applied to the 

 plant. The early taxonomists must therefore be accorded the merit of 

 having not only corrected an erroneous impression on the part of the 

 ancients but of haviug preserved throughout a fairly natural limitation 

 for the genus. 



At the commencement of the eighteenth Century a change occurred. 

 Tournefort who in 1700 first defined the genus with something approach- 

 ing to précision, nevertheless marred its natural character by includ- 

 ing in it not only the group of forms that we now-a-days deal with as 

 constituting varieties of Chelidouium majus, but also the verv distinct 

 North American plant which forms the verv natural genus Sanguinaria. 

 Ray, another extrcmcly able taxonomist, proposed on the other band 

 in 1724 to reduce Clielidonium to Papaver itself. But this widening of 

 signification for the genus Papaver does not commend itself more than 

 does the suggestion of Tournefort, so that Limueus was amply justitied 

 when in 1737 he retained Clielidonium as a genus and gave generic 

 rank to Sanguinaria. Linnaeus however only removed one confusion 

 to introduce a still greater one since he merged in bis Clielidonium the 

 genus Glaucium projiosed by Tournefort. For Tournefort's Glaueium 



1 It is to be noteil that this particular combi nation et' epithets conserves the 

 Greek generic name but adopta the Latin trivial one. 



