AMERICAN WAX BAYBERRIES 239 
more binary plant names proportionately than Dodonaeus, 
Camerarius, Thalius or Matthiolus, still the arrangement of 
such names in separate headings, is so striking to the eye, and 
the names so much resemble the Linnaean trivial names, that 
one can hardly help thinking that the Swedish botanist had 
very carefully studied the English herbals and considered their 
ideas of trivial names, (not at all original with them, how- 
ever,) as worthy of being followed. Scores of such names 
could be baent forward perhaps to show that Linnaeus was 
much influenced by Parkinson and Gerarde, just as the latter 
were influenced by or even bodily copied from Clusius Dodo- 
naeus, Tragus and Fuchs. This fact seems all the more strik- 
ing when we -A that Linnaeus copied even the mistakes of 
the other author 
It appears that both Gerarde and Parkinson substituted 
Tamariscus for the Theophrastan names Myrica, whereas, the 
former name, if mentioned at all, was only given as a syno- 
nyme by other older botanists. Linneaus followed the Eng- 
lishmen in using the synonyme for the valid name and then 
thought himself free to apply the displaced name Myrica to 
any group of plants he wished. I can find no other reason why 
Linnaeus should have caused this confusion, though it is to 
be questioned whether it is worth while to try to investigate 
the changes of names made by him, as so many appear as 
deliberate and wanton robberies. This may, however, ex- 
plain, if explanation is worth while, why assuming the wrong 
eumd for the Tamarisk and finding the name Myrica, a syno- 
e, he felt himself free to apply it to anything he wished, 
therefore gd not to the bayberries. He thus made two blun- 
ders e once, the first in depriving a plant of its older and 
more onl used name even in his time, and the second 
nisle in vari that name as a substitute for another well 
tablished and unobjectionable name of yet another plant 
oup. 
One would think that assuming 1753 as the beginning of 
enclature this confusion could not have been perpetrated, 
1 we shall see the post-Linnaean confusion of names is 
orse perhaps than that caused by the Linnaean blunder, 
te = by the appeal to the same principles as prompted 
mall in his Flora of the Southern States, on the assump- 
that our American plants are generically different from 
European plants, the type of the Myrica of Linnaeus and 
'ale of Tournefort and J. Bauhin, separated them, and 
i the oldest synonyme of a segregate genus, that of Morella 
ro, 1790. Dr. Greene has shown that the Morella of 
Loureiro had for its type a Cochin-Chinese plant as distinct, 
