the history of aiton s ' hortus kewensis ( 



Egbert Brown. 



The practical importance of the question of citation arises 

 chiefly in connection with the monograph of the CnccifercB 

 (" Tetradynamia "), in which Cleome is included in the second 

 edition (iv. 72-133). It has always been common knowledge that 

 this monograph was the work of Robert Brown, and the numerous 

 genera and species therein established have always been attributed 

 to him, both by his contemporaries and by recent writers. But it 

 has from time to time been pointed out that in the book itself 

 Brown's name is in no way associated with the CrucifercB, either 

 in the monograph itself or in the postscript which is placed be- 

 tween the conclusion of the text and the index in the fifth volume. 

 This is the more remarkable in that his genera and species in the 

 LeguminoscB (iii. 1-22 ; iv. 266-338 ; v. 460-468), MyrtacecB (iv. 

 410-419), Composites (iv. & v. in various places), and Orchidacecs 

 (v. 188-222) are always indicated by the prefix " Brown MSS." 

 But it is not easy to see how, consistently with Article 40 of the 

 Vienna Code, Brown's name can be attached to the genera and 

 species of Cruciferce. 



The Article, which is practically a repetition of that in the De 

 Candollean ' Lois,' runs : — " For the indication of the name or 

 names of a group to be accurate and complete, and in order that 

 the date may be readily verified, it is necessary to quote the 

 author who first published the name or combination of names in 

 question." Not only did Brown himself not publish the names, 

 but, with rare exceptions — e. g. Cleome Houstonv' — he did not 

 write them on the sheets of the Banksian Herbarium on which 

 he worked, nor do they appear, save rarely, in his MSS. on the 

 CrucifercB ; moreover, the descriptions in these MSS. do not tally 

 with, though they do not contradict, the published descriptions. 



The case against their attribution to Brown was put so clearly 

 by the Messrs. Groves in the course of a discussion on nomen- 

 clature which appeared in this Journal for 1882, that I cannot do 

 better than cite it : — 



"We think that perhaps the most flagrant instance of the evil of 

 quoting other than the publisher as the authority, is that of Robert 

 Brown and Aiton's Hortus Keiuensis. . . . Here we have a book, stated 

 on the title-page as ' By the late William Aiton ; the second edition, 

 enlarged by William Townsend Aiton ' ; and from this book we are asked 

 to quote, among others, ' Mathiola, R. Br.' although there is no mention 

 whatever, under that genus, that Robert Brown had anything to do with 

 the name. We have been told that ' everybody knows ' that Robert 

 Brown described Mathiola and the other things, but how does ' everybody 

 know ' in the absence of evidence in the work itself? If we are to go 

 beyond the evidence in a book, as to the authorship of species therein de- 

 scribed, where are we to stop ? as Robert Brown is not the only instance 

 of one man doing the work and another taking the credit; and to be 

 consistent, if it should be discovered, at a future time, that another than 

 the one whose name appears to a book, had described species therein, it 

 would be necessary to alter the authority, and this would do away with 

 the certainty of the authority for every name " (p. 107). 



* Cleome was inchided in the Tetradynamia in Hort. Kew. 



