NOTES ON THE "LIST OF BRITISH SEED-PLANTS " 437 



habitat as Virginia. We cannot follow Schinz & Thellung in their 

 statement, " 0. stricta L. Sp. PI. ed. 1, 435, ex minima parte quoad 

 syn. Gron. Virg.," for how can the diagnosis be regarded as 

 minima pars ? It is impossible to dissociate the diagnosis u caule 

 ramoso erecto" from Gronovius's plant as do Schinz & Thellung, 

 since Linnaeus took his diagnosis from Gronovius, and no doubt 

 had Gronovius's plant before him. We agree with these authors 

 that 0. Dillenii is synonymous with the Gronovian plant, i. e. true 

 0. stricta. Again we agree in regarding " 0. comicnlata L. Sp. 

 PL quoad Hort. Cliff/' as synonymous with 0. europcea Jord., but 

 we cannot follow them in regarding the Hort. Cliff, reference as 

 " 0. corniculata L. ex minima parte," because the diagnosis is from 

 Hort. Cliff, p. 175, of which we have the type; this is not a 

 matter of synonymy, but the original diagnosis. It is true that 

 Linnaeus adds the word " diffuso " in the Sp. PL, but this is 

 merely to distinguish the species from his additional species 

 0. stricta taken from Gronovius and described as " erecto." It was 

 as a result of the study of these original specimens in the National 

 Herbarium that Dr. Eobinson arrived at the conclusions which 

 we follow. 



101. Medicago minima L. must be cited as of Desrousseaux in 

 Lam. Encycl. hi. 636 (1789) (see note on Flora Anijlica, p. 434). 

 We cannot follow Schinz & Thellung, who cite the name as of 

 Bartalini Cat. piant. Siena 61 (1776). Bartalini gives in addi- 

 tion to the name only two references, one to the general descrip- 

 tion of polymorpha given by Linnasus (who made minima a var. of 

 polymorpha), and the other " Medica echinata glabra cum maculis 

 nigricantibus, I. B. 3 [ii.] 384," which does not refer to minima of 

 Linnaeus, as that plant has not black spots. Further, Bartalini 

 does not quote the right synonym for minima from J. Bauhin, 

 cited by Linnasus, viz. Medicago echinata minima, of which 

 Bauhin has a good figure on p. 386. 



102. Melilotus. We follow Schinz & Thellung in the altera- 

 tion of the names of the yellow-flowered Melilots. If, officinalis 

 Lam. Fl. Fr. ii. 594 (1778) includes three plants, two with yellow 

 and one with white flowers. Desrousseaux in Lamarck's Ency- 

 clopedia iv. 63 restricts the name to the two yellow-flowered 

 species, and Thuillier (Fl. Paris, ed. 2, 378 (1799)) separates 

 M. altissima from M. officinalis, which therefore remains for the 

 plant called in our List M. Petitpierreana Hayne. The names 

 therefore stand thus: — M. altissima Thuill. I.e. vice M. officinalis 

 Lam. ; M. officinalis Lam. 1. c. vice M . Petitpierreana Hayne. 



103. Trifolium medium L. and T. squamosum L., and Vicia 

 angustifolia L. (109). These names are quoted by Schinz <fe 

 Thellung in error from the first edition of Linnaeus's Flora 

 Anglica ; they appear for the first time in the second edition pub- 

 lished, as cited by us, in the Amcenitates (iv. 1759). As we have 

 already pointed out, it is absurd to call these names nomina nuclei. 

 In the case of V. angustifolia the identification is based on some- 

 what slender evidence, but has always been accepted by British 

 botanists. 



