Rafinesque's Publications from the Standpoint of World Botany Author(s): E. D. Merrill Source: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 87, No. 1, The Early History of Science and Learning in America (Jul. 14, 1943), pp. 110-119 Published by: American Philosophical Society Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/985004 Accessed: 02-01-2019 20:06 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/985004?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Philosophical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society This content downloaded from 206.253.207.235 on Wed, 02 Jan 2019 20:06:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RAFINESQUE'S PUBLICATIONS FROM THE STANDPOINT OF WORLD BOTANY E. D. MERRILL Harvard University (Read November 20, 1942) IN undertaking work on a major task of ac- This short paper is not intended to be a sum- tually preparing a comprehensive "Index Rafin- mary of Rafinesque's life and work. Briefly he esquianus," I recently had occasion to make a was born in Galata, a suburb of Constantinople, critical examination of all of that most erratic in 1783 and passed his youth in Turkey, Livorno, botanist's numerous botanical publications. At Marseilles, Pisa, and Genoa. His father was a the same time I examined a great many papers French merchant, and his mother, nee Schmaltz, by various authors commenting on diverse phases was of German parentage, born in Greece. He of Rafinesque's work. One statement by Pro- was largely self-educated, never having attended fessor M. L. Fernald' impressed me, and it was a university. From 1802 to 1805 he lived in his comment that suggested to me the topic dis- Philadelphia, and from 1806 to 1815 in Palermo, cussed in this paper. He had occasion to con- Sicily. He returned to the United States in sider the status of certain eastern North Ameri- 1815, spending the remaining years of his life in can species named and described by Rafinesque, this country. His second voyage to the United and states: "Constantine Samuel Rafinesque States ended in a catastrophe. After a long trip [Schmaltz], the most erratic student of the of 100 days, the ship, the Union of Malta, on higher plants, has made unending trouble for which he was a passenger was wrecked on Race American and (although they apparently do not Rocks, near Fisher's Island in Long Island Sound, realize it) European botanists." In another on November 2, 1815. In this shipwreck Rafi- paper on Rafinesque2 I mentioned Fernald's nesque states that he lost his fortune, his share of statement and amplified it by calling attention the ship's cargo, all of his natural history collec- to the fact that, in his papers published while he tions assembled in the preceding twenty years, was a resident of Palermo, between 1806 and his library, unpublished manuscripts, drawings, 1815, and especially in his later publications, and even his clothes. He remained in New York chiefly those issued in Philadelphia in the decade for several years and in 1818 made his first trip between 1830 and 1840, Rafinesque originated to Kentucky, returning to Philadelphia late in myriads of problems not only for the students of that year. In May, 1819, he'left Philadelphia the flora of Europe to solve, but also for those for Lexington, Kentucky, where from that year concerned with a study of the floras of Mexico until 1826 he taught in Transylvania University. and Central America, the West Indies, South He returned to Philadelphia in September, 1826, America, Japan, Siberia, China, India, Central and with the exception of various exploring ex- Asia, Asia Minor, Malaysia, Australia, and North, peditions to some of the Eastern States, he re- Central, and South Africa. There is scarcely a sided in that city until his death, September 18, major floristic area in the world that Rafinesque's 1840. At the time of his death he was in very work does not touch. His erratic work, in the straightened circumstances, and his body was past largely associated with North American buried by some of his friends in Ronaldson's botany, because much of his productive career cemetery in that city. The grave was not per- was spent in the United States, and much of his manently marked until 1919. His effects were work was published here, far from raising merely disposed of at auction to meet the demands of problems of concern to botanists working on the his creditors. When Ronaldson's cemetery was North American flora, actually impinges on abandoned as a cemetery and turned into a city world botany to a remarkable degree. park, Rafinesque's remains were disinterred and removed to Transylvania College, Lexington, 1 Fernald, M. L. Some genera and species of Rafinesque. Rhodora 34: 21-28, 1932. Kentucky, in March, 1924. The centenary of 2 Merrill, E. D. A generally overlooked Rafinesque his death was celebrated by special ceremonies paper. Proc. Am. Philos. Soc. 86 (1): 72-90, 1942. at Transylvania College in October, 1940. PROCtEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, VOL. 87, NO. 1, JULY, 1943 110 This content downloaded from 206.253.207.235 on Wed, 02 Jan 2019 20:06:04 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms RAFINESQUE'S PUBLICATIONS 111 I cannot refrain from quoting a few passages work of Loudon, Lindley, Sowerby, Hooker, and from G. Browne Goode's3 review of Richard E. others. It is fortunate, for those who must con- Call's Life and Writings of Constantine Samuel cern themselves with bibliographical matters in Rafinesque. Goode states that Rafinesque was listing new names, that Rafinesque's innovation in publishing many scores of new generic and a man whose brilliant intellect, eccentric character specific names in his reviews of the work of other and unhappy fate will always cause his career to be looked upon with interest, and whose nervous and authors was not followed by his successors. Per- appalling industry has been the cause of a myriad of haps influenced by Rafinesque's procedure, the perplexities to students of the nomenclature of plants unwritten law that reviews should not be made and animals in Europe as well as in America.... the media for publishing new names became uni- The roving habit of mind which soon became a part versally established over a century ago. Rafi- of his nature led him into a mental vagabondage that nesque's overlooked paper of 1834 is listed in the influenced his career even more than the lack of a Royal Society's Catalogue of Scientific Papers (5: permanent place of abode. His precocious 76, 1871), but I have elsewhere seen no references mind, unguided and undisciplined, wandered at will over the entire field of books and nature, and by the to it; it is not mentioned in Fitzpatrick's5 com- time he had reached the age of nineteen he had prehensive bibliography of Rafinesque, which formed his own character and equipped himself for contains 940 numbered items. the career which lay before him. Lacking In the course of my examination of Rafi- . guidance, however, he was by no means fitted nesque's publications it soon became manifest to enter upon a scientific career in a country like the that various other important papers of this au- United States, so when . he crossed the Atlantic thor had not been indexed. I was aware of the [first in 1802, and again in 1815] he brought with fact that this applied to the rather extensive and him the germs of failure and bitter disappoint- ment. His fatal tendency to 'scatter' was al- very rare Autikon Botanikon (1840), which was ready apparent, and in the work which he did for printed in Philadelphia in the year of Rafi- the 'Specchio' [during his residence in Palermo] nesque's death. Here, because no copy was all the weaknesses of his subsequent career were available, the new generic names were not listed foreshadowed. in Index Kewensis until its seventh supplement My adventures in Rafinesquiana commenced appeared in 1929. The entries for 83 new generic in the early part of 1942, when I discovered by names were made from Pennell's6 paper; the chance that in a paper published by Rafinesque4 several hundred new binomials that appear in the in France in 1834 there were no less than 46 new Autikon Botanikon are still unlisted. Inciden- generic names and binomials, for the most part tally, a modern lithoprint facsimile edition of this validly published, that had entirely escaped the rare work has recently been issued under the attention of the compilers of our standard indices. auspices of the Arnold Arboretum, and it is now The oversight is scarcely surprising, for the rea- generally available for the first time, since most son that all of these new names are undifferenti- of the limited original edition was apparently ated in the text covering Rafinesque's cursory destroyed in Philadelphia after Rafinesque's remarks regarding de Candolle's interpretations death.