248 CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE NATIONAL HERBARIUM. 
7 
would have been a perfectly justifiable procedure, and the name 
Asterella would naturally have been reserved for the remaining 
species. Even in the absence of such knowledge the retention of the 
name for A. tenella is logically demanded, according to the Vienna 
Rules, since Reboulia preceded Fimbriaria by two years. Nees von 
Esenbeck’s genus would then naturally lapse into synonymy, since 
the other species included in Fémbriaria are all congeneric with A. 
tenella, These conclusions seem inevitable and were clearly stated by 
Underwood! over 20 years ago. 
Unfortunately Lindberg,’ when he revived the genus Asterella in 
1868, restricted the name to A. hemésphaerica instead of to A. tenella, 
’ although he gives no reason for so doing. Six years later Trevisan,® 
in ignorance of Lindberg’s action, revived Asterella independently, 
referring to it five species, all congeneric with A. tenella. Soon after- 
wards, however, upon learning of Lindberg’s work, he adopted the 
genus Asterella in the Lindbergian sense and revived Corda’s genus 
Hypenantron for A. tenella and its allies,* the name Fimbriaria in 
his opinion being untenable. At almost the same time Lindberg * 
also changed, and used Asterella in the sense originally suggested by 
Trevisan (that is, for A. tenella and its allies), the name Reboulia 
thus again becoming available for A. hemisphaerica. These facts 
are set forth with much ridicule by Le Jolis,¢ who advocates the 
abandonment of the name As¢erel/a altogether on account of the dif- 
ferent senses in which it has been used, not only by different writers 
but by the same writers at different times. His arguments would 
perhaps have more weight if Palisot de Beauvois himself, rather 
than his successors, had been responsible for the confusion. Since 
this is not the case, there seem to be no adequate reasons for giving 
up the name but many good reasons for retaining it in the sense 
originally suggested by Trevisan, a course which recent writers in 
America and Scandinavia have consistently maintained. At the same 
time most European writers still prefer Fimbriaria; and both 
Stephani and Schiffner, at the Brussels Congress in 1910, definitely 
recommended that Fimbriaria and Reboulia be placed among the 
nomina conservanda, to the exclusion of Aséerella. 
Of the four species originally assigned to Fimbriaria the first, 
which may be regarded as the type of the genus, was the African 
F. marginata Nees, the remaining species being F. fragrans Nees, 
F, saccata (Wahl.) Nees, and F. tenella (L.) Nees. During the next 
? Bot. Gaz. 20:59, 1895. 
* Not. Silisk. Faun. Fl. Fenn. Férh, 9: 286, 1868. 
* Rend. Ist. Lombardo II. 7: 785. 1874. 
“Mem. Ist. Lombardo III. 4: 440, 1877. 
*Hep. Utveckl. 49. 1877. 
*Mém. Soc. Sci. Nat. Cherbourg 29: 131, 1895. 
