VOL. II. | Recent Literature. : 89 
The attempt to disturb nomenclature by referring generic names 
to ancient authors in whose records they appear with more or less 
uncertainty is at this day almost beneath serious notice. Mr. 
Britton in the Torrey Club Bulletin for May, well says: “ How can 
he in any event safely credit a name to Dioscorides or Theophrastus? 
They surely did not originate such terms as Astragalus and Sorbus, 
but merely recorded what certain plants were called in their time.” 
Surely even Professor Greene must be able to see that if these names 
and others in common use are to be so credited, the numerous 
others which are either not used at all, or used for entirely different 
plants than those to which they were originally applied, have an 
equal right to restoration. And where is a stopping place to be 
found? Have the vernacular names recorded by Greeks and Ro- 
mans any better claim than the far older ones of the Hebrews, the 
Egyptians, the Hindoos or the Chinese? A large number of the 
names of Theophrastus, etc., have been identified, but some mous- 
ing antiquarian excavating about Jerusalem may furnish us at any 
: time with the records of Solomon, who ‘“‘spake of trees, from the 
Cedar tree that is Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out 
of the wall.’’ 
If Prunus is to be credited to Varro, Rudus to Virgil and Amyg- 
dalus to Theophrastus, why not say Afzos Theophrastus, instead of 
Malus Tournefort? But then there is a still older name given by 
irrefragible authority—the Hebrew Ez, mentioned in Genesis; and 
Cerasus even when credited to Theophrastus is certainly long ante- 
dated by Biméa of the Mahabharata. K. B. 
Revision of the American species of Epilobium occurring north of 
Mexico. By WiLi1AM TRELEASE; PPp- 118, 48 plates. Extract 
from the second Annual Report of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 
Issued April 22, 1891. This work shows the usual painstaking 
study for which the author is so well known. The genus is a very 
difficult one, many of the species forming fertile hybrids, which are, 
- in the absence of extensive field studies, a source of much perplexity. 
The author is very conservative in his dealings with the species. 
He says: “I have tried as far as possible to account for all species 
indicated by him [Haussknect] and other writers as coming within 
our limits, recognizing them as valid whenever satisfactory reason 
could be obtained for doing'so. It is with reluctance that I publish 
" several as new. It must be said, however, that increasing familiarity 
