BR. IT. A. WEDDELL ON THE GENERIC NAME CASCAKILT.A. 185 



Remarks on the Generic Name Cascarilla. By H. A. We 





M.D., F.M.L.S., &c. From a letter addressed to J. E. Howaud, 



Esq. 



[Eead March 4, 1869.] 



Having had of late many opportunities of appreciating the 

 advantages of the Code of Laws recommended by the Botanical 

 Congress of 1SG7, I thought I would, while dealing with cases of 

 priority, examine more closely than I had hitherto done a ques- 

 tion to which you have frequently called the attention of botanists, 

 I allude to the expediency of maintaining or rejecting the name of 

 Cascarilla, given to a genus of cinchonaceous plants, and closely 

 allied, but, in my opinion, still clearly distinct from, Cinchona *. 

 The conclusion I have come to is that the name oi Cascarilla must 

 give way to that of Biiena (Pohl), its elder — and not, as many 

 have thought, to Ladenhergia (Klotzsch), which is of earlier 

 date. 



Were the dis2)uted point to be merely between Cascarilla and 

 Ladenhergia, the first name would needs have to be maintained, as 

 there is no sufficient reason for rejecting it {vide * Laws of No- 

 menclature,' art. 58 and 59)t. 



The name of Buena was given by Pohl to a Brazilian tree, B. 

 hexandra, discovered by him in tlic province of Eio de Janeiro. 

 It is the only species he has described of the genus, and has since 

 become one of Klotzsch's Ladenbergice and of my Cascarillce. 



Klotzsch, moreover, gave the name of Buena to the first sec- 

 tion of his genus Ladenhergia, that of Cascarilla being applied to 



* Nevertheless, if it were clearly shown that there is such a thing as Cinchona 

 with capsules dehiscing indifferently from base upwards and v'we verm, my con- 

 fidence in these genera would be somewhat shaken ; but I must say tliat I am not 

 at present sufficiently convinced that the double dehiscence described by M. 

 Karsten, as characteristic of his Cinchona heterocarpa, is an entirely natural 

 one. I mentioned a similar occurrence as having taken place in a specimen of 

 C. lucxim<efoliay but I looked upon it as a mere fost Tnorfem accident. 



t Art. 58. When a Tribe is made into an Order, when a subgenus or a section 

 becomes a genus, or a division of a species becomes a species, or vice versa, the 

 old names are maintained, provided the result be not the existence of two genera 

 of the same name in the vegetable kingdom, &c. 



Art. 59. Nobody is authorized to change a name because it is badly chosen or 

 disagreeable or another is preferable or better known, or for any other motive 

 either contestable or of little import. 



LIXN. PHOC. — BOTANY, VOL, 11. O 



