l82 SMIHHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Let us give a momsnt's attention here to another set of plants 

 which he places in jiixtaposition for the reason that they all exhibit 

 a kind of tuberiform organs as developed among their roots. The 

 group is 



Brunfels Modern 



Scrophularia major Scrophularia nodosa 



Scrophularia media Sedum Telephium 



Ficaria Ficaria ranunculoides 



The point that is of special interest here is, that for the third 

 member of the group Brunfels rejects that which was one of its 

 common mediaeval names, that is, Scrophularia minor; though 

 more anciently, even with Dioscorides, it was called Chelidonium 

 minus. What he did with this third plant of the list seems to at- 

 test that there was in him, botanically, as there was ecclesiastically, 

 something of the spirit of the revolutionist, or reformer. If there 

 had not been, he would have been almost sure to have called this 

 ranunculeous herb by one or other of its ancient and mediaeval names 

 rather than startle the herbalists and pharmacists of his time by 

 that new name, Ficaria, for a type so long known under very 

 different appellations. We shall also, I think, miss a part of what 

 was in his mind, if we do not read here the expression of an objection 

 on his part against the old way of naming and grouping of plants 

 conformably to their medical qualities rather than according to 

 their morphology. All three of the plants had been called kinds 

 of Scrophularia, because they were believed to be efficacious against 

 ) f crofula ; and there is with me no doubt that Brunfels in dis- 

 placing one of the old Scrophularia names by the new generic name 

 Ficaria is to be understood as mildly protesting against qualita- 

 tive criteria of plant affinities, and affirming the need of appealing 

 to the morphologic. 



We were observing above how Brunfels might be said to have 

 limited his group of the orchids to such genera of them as have 

 a certain kind of underground organ; that he excluded from the 

 group such as have only fibrous roots, himself all the while oblivious 

 — as all the world before him always had been — of the flowers 

 by the structure of which all stand at agreement. Let us now 

 observe him locating as far away from each other two groups of 

 genera known to us as borragineous plants. In this instance he does 

 not separate on ground of difiEerences as to roots, or form of leaves, 

 but of pubescence only, that is, over and above certain qualities 

 common to all. Upon such principles are Echium, Cynoglossum, 



