LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HIS|TORY— GREENE I 83 



and Borrago made to form a group of genera. > We of to-day, 

 after four centuries of taxonomic progress, concede that Brunfels 

 ■was correct in apprehending a very intimate consanguinity between 

 the three. But we hold them in juxtaposition on quite other 

 grounds than those which had weight in the early sixteenth century. 

 We judge them near allies because the plan of their flowers, and the 

 common characteristics of their fruits are the same. With Brunfels 

 the flower was so almost wholly unknown that no such thing as the 

 plan of a flower had been thought of. And, viewed superficially— 

 the only view that had yet been taken of flowers at all,— they were 

 very notably dissimilar. The corollas of the genera are of remark- 

 ably distinct types, that of Echium being narrowly tubiform below, 

 with an irregular almost bilabiate limb ; that of Cynoglossum is short- 

 salverform, perfectly regular; that of Borrago broadly and flatly 

 star-shaped. Few families of plants present three genera so unlike 

 as to the cut of their respective corollas as these three. We there- 

 fore seem to infer to a certainty that in collocating these three 

 generic types, he had had the utmost regard to their likeness as to 

 roots, stems, foliage, and especially to that armature of harsh 

 somewhat stinging bristles wherewith all three alike defend them- 

 selves; and that in the process of his reasoning the corolla, i.e., 

 the "flower," was. not at ^11 considered. And, as if to place this 

 beyond dispute, two other borragineous types are relegated to 

 another part of the book. One is a Cynoglossum, the other a 

 Myosotis.'^ Both differ from the other group in that they show 

 no trace of the stinging-bristly or any other rough indument. 

 They are almost silkily soft-hairy. Had he not held such differences 

 to be most significant, taxonomically, it is impossible to see why 

 he separated so widely these two groups of what we of to-day 

 understand to be near allies. 



If one is to follow the progress of plant taxonomy from the 

 year 1530 forward, it will be needful to bear in mind such things 

 as Brunfels' failure to apprehend the consanguinity of all the 

 borragineous genera that he knew; as well as to note, if perchance 

 one may discover the reason, why he failed. Then afterwards 

 it must be observed how those who came after him, one after another 

 and little by little, brought the other genera of such a family into a 

 continuous sequence ; also all the while attending to — even carefully 

 noting — the development of new principles, whatever they may 

 have been, in accordance with which the better taxonomy of more 



> Herb. Viv. Icon., vol. i, pp. 111-113. 

 »Ibid., I7S-I77' 



