THEIR NOMENCLATURE. 448 
successors of Smith and his cotemporaries, so long failed to make 
out his species clearly. 
We may now look into the ‘Manual of British Botany’ for a 
gradual clearing away of the confusion, by bringing into use and 
prominence the real and sufficient distinctions between the several 
species. In this instance, the imitation of foreign Floras proved to 
be nearly the right course. Unfortunately, the clearance came so 
gradually and hesitatingly, as to put the successive editions of the 
‘Manual’ inconveniently inconsistent with each other. In the 
first edition a retrogression was made, by re-combining or re- 
confusing Smith’s three species into one ; which was, however, 
correctly designated canina (Linn.) In the second edition a better 
course was taken, by separating sylvatica on the one side, and 
lactea on the other side; but still leaving the shorn canina some- 
thing of an ill-understood jumble between them; and incon- 
sistently keeping up the same name restrictedly to a third of the 
whole, which in edition first had meant the whole of the whole. It 
is this bad practice, as already shewn under Ranunculus aquatilis, 
which has repeatedly caused confusion, instead of elucidation, in 
Professor Babington’s writings about English plants. 
True, at the date of his second edition, he had not yet seen his 
way clearly among these plants. The sylvatica is far the most 
abundant of the three in England, and it had consequently 
become the representative of the Linnean canina in our herbaria, 
and was figured for it in ‘English Botany.’ But in that second 
edition it was indicated as questionably “common?” While the 
less plentiful flavicornis (the canina of that edition) was reported 
positively ‘‘ common.” These indications, taken in connexion with 
the imperfect descriptions, shew the Author of the ‘Manual’ not 
yet become quite familiar with the true species in their living 
reality, apart from books, so lately as 1847. And at that date, 
it may be, no English botanists were more clear and advanced in 
their knowledge of these canine violets. 
In the third edition of the same book there is further progress ; 
perhaps also an unwarranted retrogression. Viola stagnina is 
there added; having been previously confused with lactea. It 
