20 INDEX TO THE 



Mr. Kippisfc, the then Librarian, what the sign (No. 4) meant, 

 and he owned that he did not know, nor did anyone else. 



The latest guess was that made a few years ago by Pastor 

 Enander ; his view is : — that they are certainly Russian letters^ 

 and thus may be regarded as pointing to J. P. Palck, born in 

 Westgotland in the year 1732 or 1733, professor at the Medical 

 College in St. Petersburg, with whom Linne stood in close relation 

 (Salices, p. 11). Now although the sign No. 4 may be taken as the 

 Greek 0, it cannot stand for </), and No. 1 resembles no current 

 Russian letter whatever. This speculation therefore does not help us. 



This tantalizing uncertainty therefore was a subsidiary point 

 that 1 set myself on beginning my investigation of the herbarium 

 to find out, where possible, what these puzzling memoranda 

 meant. I therefore copied them each time they occurred, and 

 at the end, I had lists of plants bearing the cryptic signs. By 

 comparison of the whole material thus obtained, I was able to set 

 out the meaning of most of the signs occurring, thus : — 



No. 1. Collected by Grerber, principally in the district of the 

 river Don or Astrachan. 



No. 2. Prom Siberia, communicated by Gmelin. 



No. 3. Prom Kamtschatka, collected by Steller. 



No. 4. Hasselquist's plants, as also No. 6. 



No. 5. Almost certainly Osbeck ; see No. 9. 



No. 6. Hasselquist, the sign appears to be deriA^ed from " Habitat 

 in Oriente." I have tried to discover if there was any 

 reason why two signs for one collector were employed, 

 but so far fruitlessly. 



No. 7. Unknown ; applied to Bellis annua and an unnamed 

 specimen of Conferva. 



No. 8 is used as meaning " aristate," and 



No. 9 for " muticous," but the terms seem sometimes loosely 

 applied, and in one case misapplied ; the latter sign is 

 also confused with Osbeck, and with O for annual. 



No. 10. May be a long S, and stand for " suecia " ; a cross- 

 stroke is sometimes present ; Linne often used a small 

 initial, as Stockholm. 



No. 11. Occurs in relation to Antliericum calyculatum, Ornitho- 

 galum minimum, Salix rosmarinifolia, and Sisymbrium 

 altissimum. With regard to the third, Enander prints 

 the sign as ]) , which means silver to the mineralogist, 

 and may refer to a silvery appearance of the specimen. 



Numbers employed. 



The system of numbering adopted by Linne must be mentioned. 

 The numbers found in the herbariuDi, either alone, or in asso- 

 ciation with a specific name, refer to the numbers given in the 

 original edition of the ' Species Plantarum ' in 1 753 ; additional 

 species were lettered in capitals and intercalated in their appropriate 



