Page:Transactions of the Linnean Society of London, Volume 12.djvu/398

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346
Sir J. E. Smith's Characters

T. apulum minimum.Column. Ecphr. p. 1. 122. t. 124.Tourn. Inst. 320.Raii Hist. 412.Moris. Hist. v. 3. 316. sect. 9. t. 16. f. 6.

Seseli creticum minimum.Bauh. Pin. 161.

A variety is subjoined from Boerhaave's Hort. Lugd. Bat. concerning which nothing can be ascertained; and as Linnæus never again adverted to this supposed variety, we must leave it undetermined.

In the first edition of Sp. Pl. 239, the Tordylium in question appears with the specific name apulum, and the above essential characters, with a reference to Hort. Cliff. and to Van Royen's Prodr. Lugd. Bat. 94. But its other synonyms are limited to Columna and Bauhin, as above cited.

Now it appears that the synonyms of Columna and Rivinus belong to two very different plants. Which of these is to be taken for the T. apulum of Linnæus? There being no specimen in his herbarium, the specific character must be resorted to as our safest guide, and this agrees with the plant of Rivinus, not of Columna; "pinnis subrotundis laciniatis." Such was doubtless the plant of the Hortus Cliffortianus, which appears by the Viridarium Cliffortianum to have been cultivated at Hartecamp, and was therefore seen alive by Linnæus. Such likewise is T. apulum of Jacquin, Hort. Vindob. v. 1. t. 53, which that author afterwards finding not to answer to the synonym of Columna, he thought he had mistaken the Linnæan name, and in the 3d volume of the same work, p. 2, he refers his plant to the Linnæan T. officinale.

On the contrary, it appears to me that Columna's figure represents merely a starved variety of officinale, under which species I have long ago quoted it, with a mark of doubt, in Fl. Brit.; and that Jacquin has described the genuine apulum of Rivinus and Linnæus.

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