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RANUNCULUS 
the particular form of a species which a given author chose to regard as the “type.” In the case of a variable species originally 
described, for example, by Linnaeus, it is sometimes possible to determine the particular form of that species which Linnaeus 
had before him or had in his mind’s eye when he penned his original description. This particular form would be correctly 
described as the Linnaean type-, but it is not necessarily the type of that abstraction which is known to botanists as the species. 
Hooker and Arnott {Brit. FI. ed. 7, 8 (1855)) could not have known very much about the distribution of this species 
when they suggested, as they virtually did, that it was a state of R. hederaceus induced by warm water, being “principally 
met with in ditches where the temperature is raised by warm condensed steam.” As a matter of fact, R. homoiophyllus {= R. 
lenormandi) is locally abundant on the Pennines in swamps of Juncus effusus and in streamlets up to an altitude of about 
490 m., where any suggestion of the temperature of the water being “raised by warm condensed steam” is preposterous. It 
was, of course, formerly the fashion among systematists to attribute practically all variation in plants to habitat-conditions; 
and it is perfectly true that these are the cause of a great deal of variation, but by no means all. 
Recent authorities have come to name the present species R. lenormandi Schultz {loc. cit.). In doing so, they appear to 
have overlooked the fact that Schultz himself acknowledged that his R. lenormandi was identical with R. coenosus Gussone 
{loc. cit.). However Schultz acknowledged this in Arch, de FI. France et Allem. 70 (1841) and in the FI. Gall, et Germ, 
exsiccatae, no. 1001 (issued as Batrachium coenosum). Godron {loc. cit.) and Babington {loc. cit.) also recognised the identity 
of R. lenormandi Schultz and R. coenosus Gussone. It is clear— and no one seems ever to have questioned the fact— that 
R. coenosus Gussone is precisely the same as R. homo'iophyllus Tenore. If this indeed be doubted, a careful comparison of 
the original descriptions of Gussone and Tenore will establish the fact beyond question. Gussone described his R. coenosus 
Map 56. Distribution of R. homoiophyllus ( = /?. lenormandi) in the British Islands 
four years after Tenore had named his R. homoiophyllus-, and it is clear to us that Gussone had denore’s account in front of 
him when doing so. Gussone discusses the matter in the same way as Tenore had done before him, going over the same 
ground, and using the same arguments and almost the same phraseology. For example, both these Italian authorities point 
out that they had formerly named the plant R. hederaceus : both acknowledge that this was an error ; and both cite and 
praise an English figure of R. hederaceus in support of their new position. Tenore referred to the plate in Curtis FI. Lond. 
and Gussone to that in Smith Eng. Bot. It is clear then that R. homoiophyllus is the earliest binominal bestowed on the 
present species, and that it must therefore displace the later R. coenosus and the still later R. lenormandi. 
The history of this nomenclatorial error is interesting. So far as we have traced it, it begins with a question asked by 
Boreau {FI. France dd. 3, ii, 9 (1857)). “The Ran. coenosus Guss. which Mons. Godron regards as identical with R. lenor- 
mandi , is it,” asks Boreau, “ really the same species ? ” Then Boreau cites a few unimportant discrepancies. Boreau’s reasonable 
doubt can easily be removed by those botanists who are acquainted with the mud-forms and the water-forms respectively of 
the species in question. A later botanist converted Boreau’s doubt into a categorical denial ; and this denial has been copied 
by nearly all modern systematists. An examination, however, of authentic specimens, an impartial reading and comparison of 
the original descriptions of Tenore and Gussone, and a study of the formae of the species involved, seem to us to preclude 
all doubt regarding the name of this species and its synonyms. 
