HITCHCOCK AND CHASE—NORTH AMERICAN PANICUM. 15 
name Panicum for the group which he segregated as Setaria, and 
restore the name Milium for the group which he called Panicum. But 
since botanists have for one hundred and fifty years almost unani- 
mously accepted the nomenclatorial idea of retaming the name 
Panicum for the group containing P. maliacewm, it would be unwise to 
alter the application of the names Panicum and Milium unless it 
becomes the consensus of botanical opinion that all generic names 
shall be based upon historic types. Aside from the nomenclatorial 
confusion arising from such a series of changes, we fear that the diffi- 
culties and uncertainties encountered in an attempt to establish a 
stable nomenclature on such a basis would be much greater than those 
that have arisen in applying the generic names in accordance with the 
American Code of Botanical Nomenclature, which arbitrarily fixes 
1753 as the date from which priority shall be reckoned and allows the 
type of Linnean genera to be selected from economic species. 
HISTORY OF PANICUM AFTER 1753. 
The second edition of Linneus’s Species Plantarum contains 
twenty-eight species of Panicum, including all except two of the origi- 
nal twenty. Panicum dissectum was removed to Paspalum, estab- 
lished by Linnezus in 1759, and Panicum americanum was transferred to 
Holcus as H. spicatus. In 1772 Panicum sanguinale was separated 
by Scopoli as Digitaria sanguinalis, and in the course of a few years 
other species of the first group, Spicata, were separated from Panicum 
and assigned to the genera Setaria, Echinochloa, Oplismenus, and 
others. Panicum dactylon was included by Linneus in his second 
group, Paniculata, though the inflorescence is spicate as he himself 
describes, ‘‘Panicum spicis digitatis patentibus.’’ This species was 
soon made the type of a new genus, Capriola Adans., and, later, of 
Cynodon Rich. Later authors have almost universally retained the 
name Panicum for the paniculate species, and often have included 
as sections Echinochloa and Digitaria. 
Miller? reverts to the original use of the generic names Milium 
and Panicum, the former including, among other species, M. panicum 
(Panicum miliaceum L.) and M. effusum L., and the latter “including 
P. germanicum, P. italicum, and three kinds of pearl millet (Pen- 
nisetum). Moench® and Adanson® also use Milium and Panicum 
in the pre-Linnean sense, the former being credited to Tournefort 
(based on Panicum miliaceum L.) and the latter by Moench to 
Gaertner (who figures Chaetochloa glauca), and by Adanson to Plinius 
(who describes Chaetochloa italica). 
a Gard. Dict. 1768. ’ Meth. Pl. 1794. ¢ Fam. Pl. 1763. 
