THE JOURNAL 
OF 
THE LINNEAN SOCIETY. 
— — ¢—__ ——_ 
A Revision of the Genn Silene, Linn. 
By Freveric N. WitViams, F.L.S. 
[Read 20th June, 18995. } 
I. Systematic Affinities of Silene with other Genera, p. 1. 
II. Subdivision of the Genus into Groups, p. 12. 
III. Plan and Scope of this Revision, p. 19. 
IV. Classified List of the Species, p. 23. 
V. Systematic Enumeration of the Species, p. 38. 
I. Systematic AFFINITIES OF Silene WITH OTHER GENERA. 
As long ago as the year 1813 the elder De Candolle* 
recommended to botanists in search of a subject the genus 
Silene as the subject for a monograph, and in 1824 one 
appeared in the first volume of De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus.’+ 
This, however, was not the work of De Candolle himself, but 
was undertaken at his suggestion by Adolph Otth, and is an 
undiscriminating catalogue of the then known forms, rather than 
a monograph in the proper sense of the word. In this enumera- 
tion, not only are series of the same species under different 
names given in different sections of the genus, but the diagnoses 
are so short and meagre, that they are quite useless for satis- 
factory determination of the species. Up to the time of the 
publication of Paul Rohrbach’s monograph in 1868, no botanist 
since Otth had undertaken a revision of the entire genus, since 
* Cat. Pl. Hort. Bot. Monspeliensis, p. 146. 
+ Prodr., i, p. 367. 
LINN. JOURN.—BOTANY, VOL. XXXII. B 
