70 LEAFLETS. 
As to generic nomenclature there was no conservatism with 
this author. He rejected all the old names, even Gentiana itself 
renaming the type of that genus Asferas in allusion to its star- 
shaped yellow corollas. To Pneumonanthe he gave the gave the 
new name Cyana. To the group of species with tetramerous 
but closed corollas, a group typified by what Linnaeus long 
afterwards called G. Cruciata he gave the name Zretorrhiza; 
and what is perhaps the most showy and beautiful member of 
this alliance, the type subsequently denominated G. asclepiadea, 
Linn., he placed in generic rank under the name Dasystephana. 
This last name has now of late come to the front, in Mr. 
Small’s Flora, as the scientific appellation for our group of 
Closed Gentians. The recognition of this group as a genus is, in 
so far, a distinct advance upon the long undisturbed taxonomy 
of the gentians; but the taking up of Dasystephana as the name 
is doubtless ill advised, and this not only as violating that prin- 
ciple of priority which is said to be fundamental, but also 
because no proper Dasystephana occurs within the limits of Mr, 
Small’s Flora. Whatis known as G. frigida, Haenke, of the far 
West and Northwest is about the only American plant which 
authors who have insisted on a segregation of the Linnæan Ge: 
tiana have found congeneric with the G. asclepiadea of authors. 
But, if the types of both Pxeumonanthe and Dasystephana are to 
be received as congeneric, then the former name is to hold by 
virtue of its priority over the latter. It was upon this principle 
that all or nearly all authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth 
centuries who accepted the Closed Gentians in the rank of a 
genus, found Pxeumonanthe the rightful name for them and 
employed it. Here is a partial list of them: Gilibert (1781), 
Necker (1790), F. W. Schmidt (1796), S. F. Gray (1821), G. 
Don (1836), Rafinesque (1836), and by one or more much more 
recent authors. : 
Our North American species of PNEUMONANTHE, in so far 
as known, bear names and synonyms as follows: 
