Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/389

 THE RAREST TYPOGRAPHIC PRODUCT OF LINN^US. 361 A comparison of both the leaves iu qaestion offers still further interest. Thus the cancelled page 89 contains only one species of Minuartia, while the added leaf contains three. It appears that Linnaeus wrote Minuartia hupanica by some absent-mindedness on the cancelled page 89, but corrected it on the reprinted page 89 as Minuartia dichotoma ; and that the latter specific name is correct is corroborated by Lofling's cited passages, and also in the second edition of the Species Plantarum. We now come to the question, What impelled Linnaeus to establish, and afterwards suppress, the generic name Guerezia ? I do not think I err in ascribing this to some mistake in, or wrong- reading of, Lofling's manuscript. Lolling first informed Linnaeus of Minuartia dichotoma in a letter dated Madrid, 1/12 June, 1752, and described the plant. . . adding, " The genus is a difficult one, nevertheless I have referred it to Mollugo, although I know that its outward form is widely different." In another letter, Madrid, 17/28 August, 1752, Lofling continues his report thus : — "With regard to the Mollugo ... I am now of a different opinion. When I was at St. Fernando, on a visit to Dr. Barnades, I obtained a new species (Guerva) still smaller, quite distinct, but having the same structure, so that both facies and fructification dictate that it is a peculiar genus, and different from Mollugo. The only thing which perplexes me is that I did not see the latter at St. Fernando in flower, and further, that it has only a single seed, while the previously described one is polyspermous." Now Linnaeus mistook the word '* Guerva," and for it wrote Guerezia, of which Lofling himself under Queria wrote further, " ob capsulam monospermam debet distinctum Genus constituere." Lofling's botanical part in the Iberian peninsula yielded five new genera. Four of these he had himself established, Minuartia, Ortegia, Queria, Velezia, but the fifth Linnaeus entitled Loeflingia. ... In a letter from Madrid, dated 2/13 November, 1752, Lofling begs that his four genera may be taken up. . . . Linnaeus at once acceded to the wish of his esteemed pupil, and in May of the following year the Species Plantarum published all five genera. From this it is clear that the Species Plantarum was still under correction whilst passing through the press. Linnaeus, up to pp. 89-90, only had knowledge of one species of Minuartia, to which, by some mistake or absence of mind, he gave the name hispanica instead of dichotoma. During the printing he became aware that Guerezia should be regarded as Queria, and as he had since got information of two other species of Minuartia, he hastened to insert these corrections and additions to the still unfinished printing of the Species Plantarum, and to substitute new pages 89-90 for those already printed. I have stated that the existence of these cancelled pages has long been known, as shown by the notes by Mr. Carruthers (dated 25th Sept. 1871) in the copy of the above-mentioned work which he gave to the herbarium library at Kew: — "Pp. 89, 90 were cancelled, but in this copy the original pages are retained. In the leaf which replaced it the following changes Journal of Botany. — Vol. 34. [Aug. 1896.] 2 b