BIBLIOGRAPHY. 



It is a difficult matter to trace the original discoverer of a 

 given species of plant. We generally credit the man who is 

 the author of the specific name which the plant bears, but there 

 is frequently an earlier writer who described the plant under a 

 vernacular name or a technical name already in use, or made 

 some other nomenclatural blunder which invalidated his name 

 and often cast his discovery into oblivion. Again there is the 

 actual discoverer of the plant, who may have sent it to the author 

 with explanations as to its probable relationships, and back of 

 him, perhaps, is the backwoodsman who has long known the 

 plant by a vernacular name of his own, but who never heard of 

 scientific nomenclature or the importance of publication. For 

 practical purposes we are usually forced to follow custom' and 

 consider the author of the name as the discoverer of the plant. 



Examining the preceding pages we find that Linnseus* was 

 acquainted with no less than 570 of the species here treated. He 

 never visited America, but acquired his knowledge of our plants 

 from the collections or publications of Dillenius, Gronovius, Plu- 

 kenet, Catesby, Kalm, Colden, etc., and to living plants grown in 

 European botanic gardens. Being the originator of the binomial 

 system of nomenclature, his specific names are the earliest, and 

 are, therefore, still in use for all the plants known to him, 

 although most of his genera have since been subdivided. Many 

 of the New Jersey plants that bear his names are boreal species, 

 known also from Europe; but the large number of truly Ameri- 

 can Coastal Plain plants which he named shows how thorough 

 was the work of the early botanists who traveled in this region. 

 Comparatively few of these plants were discovered in New 

 Jersey, most of them, being described from Virginia or Carolina. 



* Cf. Jour. N. Y. Bot. Garden, June, 1907, for sketch of Linnaeus and his 

 relation to American botany, by P. A. Rydberg. 



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