372 The Last Letter of Dr. Gray. [ZoE 
remainder of the eet the ferns, and the small orders allied to the latter, 
cape this importan work to a conclusion within the limits prescribed. 
Thi sascieuls contains twenty plates (making the whole number 
Bae) ise —Sil.iman’s Journal, x1, 173, Oct. -Dec., 1840. 
THE LAST LETTER OF DR. GRAY. 
SunNDAY EVENING, November 27, 1887. 
DEAR Dr. BRITTON—I wish to call your P eaiss either in a personal 
way or in the “Bulletin,” if Saar to a name coined by you on the 
223d page of this year’s ‘‘ Bullet 
‘**Conioselinum bpiunatan "(Walter Fl. Car. under Apium), Britton, 
Selinum AO ; Michx., 1830. 
I want to herate sie mind by insisting that the process adopted 
violates ie rules of nomenclature by giving a superfluous name to a plant, 
and also that in all reasonable probability your name is an incorrect one. 
Take the second point first: On glancing at the ‘‘ Flora of North 
America,’ of Torrey and Gray 1, 619, where the name Conioselinum 
u 
bipinnatum, Walt. is not cited as a synonym; also that the synonymous 
name of Cnidium naa Spreng., is cited with ‘excl. Syn.’”” This 
Apium bipinnatum, Walt., you might gather was one referred to. Sufficient 
reason for the exclusion by Dr. Torrey might have been that Michaux’s 
plant was a cold northern one, which nobody would expect in or near 
Walter’s ground—the low and low-middle part of Carolinia. Besides, the 
preface of that Flora states that Walter’s herbarium had meanwhile been 
ou adop 
mere guess of Sprengels, copied by De Candolle, dropped on good grounds 
by Biers sigs inadvertently Fepcounee 4 aw hiderwoned “i ag I ci copying 
De Candolle. [suppose yon would 
pig dubious (I ‘might say, doubtless mrenteen) 5 name, , under a bias. ei 
e. 
And I am sure that you will not titke i ainiss when I say that very sie 
experience has made it clear to me that this business of determining rightful 
names is not so simple and mechanical as to younger botanists it seems to 
, but is very full of pitfalls. I trust it is no personal feeling which 
Son the advice that it is better to leave such rectifications for mono- 
graphs and comprehensive works, or at least to make quite sure of the 
ground, 
ples since the adoption of the Candollian code, your name of Conioselinum 
bipinnatum, even if founded in fact, would be scceupaae = superfluous 
wary 21, 1894. 
