vol. 5] Recent Literature. 14 1 



Some of these changes are not likely to be concurred in. 

 Rafmesque's Lomatium (there is a valid Lomatia in another 

 order) seems to me quite inadmissible even if one should grant 

 the propriety of dividing up Peucedanum. No type exists, and 

 the description does not agree with any known species, so that 

 Rafmesque's meaning can only be (and doubtfully) reached by 

 process of exclusion. Spermolepis Raf. appears to have no type 

 species— at least no specific name by Rafinesque is cited. 



The substitution of Washingtonia Raf. 18 18 for the long- 

 used Osmorrhiza Raf. of the same vear, or rather the taking up 

 of Britton's substitution, though under protest, seems to me 

 wholly unjustifiable. The changing of names after nearly a 

 hundred years of use for the most fanciful of causes is bad 

 enough but in this case there are especial reasons against the 

 change Washingtonia has been applied to two plants in cul- 

 tivation-a Conifer and a Palm -the latter is in all catalogues 

 as W JMfera; and it cannot be necessary to point out the ex- 

 treme inconvenience of changing names in common use by the 

 non-botanical public. 



Of the species little can now be said but in hardly any 

 of our plants are field studies more imperatively demanded, 

 and it is quite apparent that many of them have slighter 

 claim to the rank than the older ones. One of them in par- 

 ticular Leptotcenia kumilis is so very like L. anomala, collected 

 by myself, that they can scarcely be distinct. They come from 

 the same general region, at the base of the Sierra Nevada foot- 

 hills. Carbondale is not in the " Monte Diablo Region as is 

 said, but near lone, Amador County. 



Catalogue of North American Plants, north of Mexico. By 

 a. a. HELLER- Second ed. 1900. 



Herbarium check lists are scarcely legitimate subjects for 

 botanical criticism, but this one differs from others in attempting 

 an entirely botanical function, the changing of names. In this 

 work it is true that it is done in an entirely perfunctory manner, 

 without regard to the claims of the varieties which he raises to 

 specific rauk or to the value of the species transferred-without 



