DÏ"2 BULLETIN DE L'HERBIER BOISSIER. (3) 



being, like his Chelidonium, a mixture of two gênera, the Chelidoninm 

 of Linnseus is therefore a congloineration of three natural gênera — 

 the true Chelidonium as représentée! by C. mafus, the true Glaucium, 

 and the genus Bœmeria. 



Lamarck in 1784 i'ollowed Linnseus exactly; so evidently did Necker 

 in 1790; Neckers mention of the fact that the capsule in his Chelidon- 

 ium may be 3-valved proves conclusively that he still iucluded in it 

 the genus Bœmeria, since Chelidonium diphyllum, the only true species 

 in which this character occurs, was not yet described or known. 



Gaertner in 1791 once more removed Tournefort's Glaucium from 

 Limmeus' Chelidonium; by so doing he reverted to the sixteenth 

 Century view which limited Chelidonium to the group of forms known 

 as Œelidonium majus. Gaertner then is the author and 1791 is the 

 date, since the advent of our présent System of nomenclature, of the 

 first uniinpeachable définition of the genus. Ventenat in 1794 followed 

 Gaertner as to CJielidonium; it is however to be noted that Yentenat 

 includes in the re-established Glaucium the genus Bœmeria. This 

 Gaertner does not do, and though it is true that he bas not accounted 

 for Bœmeria at all, it is not probable that he intended to do so; 

 otherwise, his définition of Glaucium musthave failed. For, though there 

 is little to be said in favour of D r Kuntze's view that there is but one 

 species of Glaucium, nothing is more certain than that the inclusion in 

 Glaucium of forms devoid of a pseudo-replum violâtes the limits of one 

 of the most natural gênera among Papaver acese ; moreover, the genus 

 Bœmeria bas nothing in common with the gênera of the Chelidoniese 

 group with which it bas been usual to associate it. The natural allies 

 of Bœmeria are Cathcartia, Meconopsis and Papaver, particularly the 

 group of species which includes P. pavoninum, P. hybridum and P. 

 Argemone. To this group Bœmeria bears precisely the relationship 

 that Cathcartia vïllosa bears to Meconopsis chelidonifolia, while to 

 Cathcartia as a whole, Bœmeria bears exactly the relationship that 

 Papaver as a whole bears to Meconopsis. 



Wilklenow in 1799 returned, — not unnaturally, seeing that he was 

 engaged in re-editing Linnieus 1 great work — to the Linnean confu- 

 sion; but with the end of the eighteenth Century the impossible proposai 

 to include Glaucium in Chelidonium may be said to bave disappeared. 



If however the confusion with regard to the original species has 

 disappeared the advent of new species has given rise during the nine- 

 teenth Century to quite as much dubiety and confusion. The greatest 



