117 





DOCTOE SAKKASIN OF QUEBEC. 



■ 



By M. L* Fernald. 



In D 



r. 



Macfarlane's interesting discussion (Journ. Bot. 1907, 

 1-4) of the origin of the generic name Sarracenia, he shows very 

 clearly that the plant was named by Tournefort, not for Dr. Jean 

 Antoine Saracen (or Sarracen), of Lyons, 1547-1598, as some 



writers have stated, but for a physician of Quebec- wlm hvu\ mam 

 than 



a century later than Jean Antoine Saracen. 



In regard to 



this Quebec ^ „ , _„ „_„ 



definite which he would have made clearer had he referred to a 

 paper by Professor Penhallow,* in which the history of the Quebec 

 physician was worked out in some detail. 



According to Dr. Macfarlane, this man was " Dr. D. Sarrasin, 

 physician, anatomist, and botanist of Quebec," and he M died at 

 Quebec (about c. 1730-1740 ?)." The initial « D " of Dr. Sarrasin's 

 given name may have been assumed by Dr. Macfarlane from 

 Tournefort's dedicatory statement, " Sarracenam appellavi a Claris- 

 simo D. Sarrazin" f; but, in view of the then current practice of 

 using the abbreviation "D" for the title Doctor f \ it is probable 

 that it had no other significance in connection with Sarrasin's 

 name. Many similar cases could be cited ; for instance, Tourne- 

 fort's statement in the publication of the genus Garidelfa, that 

 u Garidella dicitur a Clariss. D. Garidel" whose name, according 

 to Pritzel, was Pierre Joseph, not "D.," Garidel; or the frequent 



references to Dr. Eichard Kichardson quoted in this Journal only 

 a few 



writer 



pages after Dr. Macfarlane's article from eighteenth century 

 •s who constantly referred to him as u D. Bichardson." 

 Professor Penhallow, whose notices of early Canadian botanists 

 were based upon old manuscripts at Quebec and on other local 

 records, found that M the earliest physician, whose name is pro- 

 minently connected with the botany of this country [Canada] , was 

 Sarrasin, resident physician at the Court of Quebec, in the early 

 part of the eighteenth century, a position he held until his death, 

 in 1734, at the age of seventy-five years" ; and in his chronological 



* D. P. Penhallow, " Review of Canadian Botany from the First Settle- 

 ment of New France to the Nineteenth Century," part i. (Trans. Royal Soc. 

 Can. v. sect iv. 1887, 45-61). [The same section contains a long "6tude 

 biographique " on Michel Sarrazin," by the Abbe Laflamme (pp. 1-23), who 

 states that the name was spelt indifferently Sarrasin or Sarrazin, but thinks the 

 latter the original spelling.— Ed. Journ. Bot.] 



t Tourn. Inst. i. 657 (1700). The author of the article which suggested 

 these notes says : " In 1719, Tournefort, ignoring the older names of Coilo- 

 phyllum, Bucaneplioron , BucanephylUm, &c, applied by his predecessors, wrote, 

 4 Sarracenam,' " <fcc. ; thus implying that the name Sarracena started in the 

 Institutions of 1719, whicli was the third edition, and issued eleven years after 

 the death of Tournefort. Furthermore, at least one of the "older names 

 applied by his predecessors," Bucanephyllon, was published by Plukenet in 

 1705, five years after Tournefort's original publication of Sarracena, which was 

 cited by Plukenet. 





But does it not rather mean Dominu* ?— -En. Journ. Bot. 



