344 MR. H. W. PUGSLEY: A REVISION OF THE 
in Algeria crescit; etiam in locis aliis hujus provincie sine dubio videnda 
est. 
This plant was discovered by Desfontaines prior to 1788 near Tlemcen and 
Mascara, and specimens of it were brought to France for cultivation. Its 
earliest description appears in Lamarck's Encyclopedia under the name of 
Fumaria africana, and four years later it was re-described by its discoverer 
as F. corymbosa, Both of the descriptions are in some detail and in. virtual 
agreement, and with these and Desfontaines’ very fair figure, the diagnostic 
characters of the species can be determined with some accuracy. The plant 
is evidently one with rather finely cut leaf-segments, ovate sepals, slender 
whitish corolla with a long spur, and slightly pointed fruits. It is not known 
whether any original specimen of Lamarck’s or Desfontaines’ is now in 
existence. 
In 1855 Cosson, in establishing the section Petrocapnos of Fumaria, again 
briefly describes this species, but extends its definition to include the purple- 
flowered plant occurring about Oran; and Hammar, in his Monograph of 
Fumaria, bases his description on the Oran form. 
In Pomel’s revision of his genus Rupicapnos (Nouv. Mat. Fl. Atlant. i. 
p. 240) six species of this group are established, and the name R. africana, 
with which Fumaria africana Lamarck is identified, is restricted to a 
purple-flowered form, characterized by very broad leaf-segments, large, 
orbicular sepals, and a very short spur to the upper petal. This plant is 
said to grow at Garrouban, Tlemcen, Gorges de la Tafna, Nedroma, and 
Oran, Tlemcen being one of Desfontaines’ stations. Only one undoubted 
example of Pomel’s plant, however, obtained in the first-named of these 
localities, has come under observation, the exsiccata examined from Tlemeen, 
Nedroma, and Oran being elearly different. 
It is not easy to see what led Pomel to apply the epithet africana to this 
apparently uncommon purple-flowered form rather than to Desfontaines 
white-flowered plant, but it is likely that when Pomel’s account of these 
plants was written, he had not been able to consult the works of Lamarck 
and Desfontaines, a reference to which would have shown the distinctness of 
the original X. africana from the form to which he restricted this specific name, 
As Article 48 of the current Rules of Nomenclature requires that original 
specific epithets must be retained (or restored) for the species to which they 
were first given, it becomes necessary reluctantly to differ from Pomel 
and to regard his Rupicapnos africana as a stillborn name, transferring 
it to the plant originally described by Lamarck. This appears to be 
conspecific with Pomel's X. graciliflora. 
The above diagnosis of this species is based on Bourgeau’s sheet of 
F. africana from Nedroma (No. 181) in Herb. Mus. Paris (excluding the 
detached fruits, which are a mixture), together with the small examples 
on the sheets of the same set in Herb, Manchester, Herb. Kew, and Herb. 
