2S6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



Digitalis down as a synonym. His remarks at this point illustrate 

 well the idea then prevailing, that the nomenclature of newly 

 proposed genera should be freely open to amendment and improve- 

 ment. "Let any one name this plant what he will. We, in con- 

 sideration of the form of the flower, shall name it Campanula 

 silvestris, at least for the time being, and until a still more appro- 

 priate name shall arise. There are those who call it Digitalis. "^ 



While Tragus, like others both before him and long after, leaves 

 the representatives of monotypic genera without specific names, 

 yet up and down the margins of a great majority of his iioo pages 

 are the binary names of species. If many of these seem to consist 

 of three terms, it is usually because two of them constitute the 

 generic name. Occasionally the third word indicates that what 

 is in hand is a mere variety of the species preceding; and now and 

 then it will be seen that a fourth word is introduced to indicate the 

 variety. In case the generic name itself is binary, the fourth 

 term becomes needful for the indicating of a named variety. Still 

 there is no trace in this author of those phrase names that became 

 a burden upon the botany of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 

 turies. The marginal placing of these binary names is as universal 

 with Tragus as one finds it in Linnaeus ; but these same names are 

 often repeated as headings to the chapters, and again over the 

 plates. The author employs less freely the numeral adjectives for 

 specific names, and has not many that are geographic. The 

 personal names for species are less rare ; though most of these are of 

 earlier mediaeval origin, commemorating saints of the Roman 

 calendar ; and he is perhaps the first of botanists to have dedicated 

 a new species to himself. ^ 



Ecology, Phenology. Tragus is far from emulating in any 

 general way the endeavors of Theophrastus to indicate groups of 

 plants ecologically considered; but there is one piece of such work 

 that ought not to be allowed to pass unnoticed. The Third Book 

 of his volume is to be devoted to the trees and to other lesser but 

 strictly woody growths. Accordingly in the first chapter at its 

 beginning there is introduced the figure of a large tree, a spruce tree, 

 as we are able to determine from a branch or two of small dimen- 

 sions which are all that remain alive ; for the tree is moribund. All 

 up and down its trunk there are fungi and lichens of several kinds; 

 then upon the ground beneath are as many more. The text of the 

 whole chapter, and it is a long one, covering seven pages, relates 



' Stirp. Comm., p. 88q. 



» Quinquefolium Tragi, Tragus, SHrp. Comm., p. 587. 



