VOL. I. ] Feecent Literature. ‘ 299 
September.—Enumeration of the Plants collected by Dr. H. H. 
Rusby in South America, 1885-1886, xvii: N. L. Britton. New or 
Noteworthy North American Phanerogams, iv: N. L. Britton. 
Proceedings of the Botanical Club of the A. A. A. S., Washington 
meeting, August 20, 1891. 
October.—Concerning some Names for Cucurbita: E. L. Sturte- 
vant. Spherella gossypina n. sp. (with plate cxxii): George F. At- 
kinson. Plants introduced at Sellsville (winter quarters of the 
Menagerie), near Columbus, Ohio: W. R. Lazenby. A New Egg- 
plant Disease: Byron D. Halstead. Notes on some Curious Fungi: 
Effie A. Southworth. 
Pittonia, No. 10. In this number Professor Greene in his usual 
happy vein reviews that recent work Tournefort’s Institutiones Rei 
Herbariz, taking it for granted apparently that the rest of the 
botanical world is in need of information about it; attempts a 
lame defense of the peculiar nomenclature of his ‘‘ Flora Fran- 
ciscana,”’ and attacks the zoological practice of permitting identical 
generic and specific names, while making use of their rule ‘once 
a synonym always a synonym,’’ to change a large number of our 
genericnames, with the usual result of getting his name after nearly 
all the species. Indeed, in two cases, 7umzon Raf., instead of Zor- 
veya Arnott, and Agoserts Raf., which he would have supersede 
our familiar 7roxzmon, he gets all the species, Rafinesque merely 
writing in his loose way about divisions of genera, without indi- 
cating any type species. Prof. Greene fails to reproduce the 
generic definitions of Rafinesque, though they can of course read- 
ily be obtained. Possibly it may have dawned upon him that a 
statement of the facts might weaken the case. Agoseris, for in- 
stance, originates in the concluding sentence of Rafinesque’s de- 
scription of the fictitious Zyoximon odoratum Raf., founded on 
Robin’s “ Chicoracée fenouillette,’’ and is as follows: ‘‘ This species, 
together with 77. virginicum, Tr. pallidum, and 7r. bulbosum, will 
form the genus Troximon, the other species which are acaules and 
with an embricated [!] calyx, must form a peculiar genus which I 
shall call Agoseris.’’ 
There are of course the never failing ‘‘ fine new species” described 
from forms, which most other botanists are content to regard as 
mere variations of species already often too nearly allied to their 
neighbors. Some of them are particularly “ noteworthy.’’ Rho- 
