4 THE HISTORY OF AITON S ' HORTUS KE^YENSIS 



combined in the same description — one having written the first 

 draft which the other has added to or corrected. 



It was doubtless his knowledge of the MSS., perhaps with the 

 help of information derived from Dryander personally,* which 

 enabled Salisbm-y in his Prodromus (1796) and elsewhere — e. g. in 

 Trans. Hort. Soc. i. 264-366 — to add the name of Solander or 

 Dryander to the names of the species first published in Hort. Kew. 

 So far as I have tested these, the attributions are accurate t ; and 

 they have been generally followed in the Index Keiuensis. An 

 examination of the MSS. would doubtless enable this to be done 

 in a large majority of cases, as it was for Crassula in a paper 

 by Mr. E. G. Baker and myself pubhshed in Journ. Bot. 1897, 

 pp. 481-484.1 



It may be noted that the authorship of certain of the names in 

 the Hortus has been generally recognized or even claimed by the 

 authors themselves ; of the latter Begonia humilis may be cited 

 as an instance. Dryander, in his " Observations " on the genus 

 (Trans. Linn. Soc. i. 155-173), although he merely appends to this 

 •' Hort. Kew. iii. 353 " — he seems to have been the most modest 

 of men — says in his note upon it " I gave it the trivial name of 

 huinilis in the Hortus Keiuensis " (p. 167). It does not seem, 

 however, that there is sufficient justification for attributing species 

 to authors who are not responsible for their publication : the Eule 

 that "it is necessary to quote the author who first imhlished the 

 name" is definite and precise. They cannot be cited as of 

 •' Solander in Ait." or even as " Solander ex Ait.," for Solander' s 

 name is nowhere quoted in the Hortus ; the earliest date at which 

 the species are attributed to him is 1796, by Salisbury, as already 

 mentioned ; to cite, as the Index Keioensis does, " [Sol. in] Ait." 

 is to import unpublished information into the matter ; and the 

 same must be said as to the claims of Dryander, although he 

 edited the first edition. " Ait." must stand as the authority for 

 this, except where special information is given, and " Ait. f." for 

 the second edition. 



It may be worth while to adduce one or two examples of the 

 doubts which must arise when information other than that afforded 

 by the published work itself is relied upon as evidence of author- 

 ship. SmitMa was, according to Smith, whom it commemorates, § 

 " named by Mr. Dryander in the Hortus Keioensis of our mutual 

 friend Alton" (iii. 496, 512), and the type specimens in the 

 Banksian Herbarium are named by Dryander. Salisbury, how- 

 ever, although in his Prodromus (p. 342, 1796) he cites the name as 

 of Dryander, has a long Latin note in the description of the plant 



* That Salisbury had the help of Dryander in his Prodromus will be seen 

 from pp. 294, 297, 324 of that work. 



t This remark does not apply to citations of other authorities — e. g. 

 " Buddlea salvifolia Banks," " Pitcairnia bromeliaeflora Garden " : the Solander- 

 Dryander MSS. do not confirm these attributions. 



X The statements therein made (p. 481) as to the authorship of the Hortus 

 Kewensis are amplified in the present paper. 



§ Introduction to Botany, 378 (1807). 



