4 An Arborescent Polygala. [ZOE 
a more useful purpose in the infancy of science, when the name of 
the author appended to a genus or species was often, at the same 
time, a reference to a solitary book or series, than in these days of 
numerous journals, proceedings of societies, etc., where frequently 
the name gives no sort of clue to the place of publication. 
As a method of escape from the conflicting claims of the first to 
the fiftieth author who has dealt with any given species, the citation 
in place of the author; of the place of publication or the page of an 
index, to which sooner or later all such matters are likely to be rel- 
egated seems to offer many advantages. One not inconsiderable 
benefit would be the removal of the temptation to found genera and 
species in whose creation nature had no part, so that the author 
might, by attaching his name thereto, acquire a brief glory and a 
fleeting aggrandizement. It has been often said that the attaching 
of these citations was merely a matter of sentiment; but if they serve 
no other purpose, the sentiment, in the case of a species at least, is 
certainly misplaced, and belongs rather to the one who in long and 
toilsome, often hazardous, sometimes fatal journeys, first finds it in 
its native haunt, rather than to the systematist who, sitting at ease 
by his fireside, leisurely dissects and labels it. 
The nomenclature of certain: departments, notably fungi, on ac- 
count of the polymorphism of a large proportion of the species, is 
complicated by unusual questions, the consideration of which is de- 
ferred to a future notice. 
awe eae 
AN ARBORESCENT POLYGALA. 
BY T. S. BRANDEGEE. 
Polygalas are described as herbaceous and shrubby plants, but I 
know of no instance of one ever having been mentioned growing so 
large as to become a tree. Polygala apopetala was described from 
small specimens growing at its most northern habitat. This year I 
found it abundant in the Sierra de Laguna, a range of mountains 
near Todos Santos, in Lower California, that reach an altitude of 
nearly 5,000 feet. In the cafionsat the base of the range this hand- 
some species acquires its greatest development, and becomes a 
small tree, having a trunk and spreading top, and equaling in height 
the surrounding Acacias and Lysilomas. The finest example seen 
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