TRbooora 
JOURNAL OF 
THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 
Vol. 21. November, 1919. No. 251. 
LOMATOGONIUM THE CORRECT NAME FOR 
PLEUROGYNE. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE name Pleurogyne has become so fixed in the literature of north- 
ern and alpine floras that it is disconcerting to discover that it is 
clearly antedated by Lomatogonium. There is, however, a degree 
of satisfaction in the fact that, while the generic name Pleurogyne had 
a very irregular genesis, Lomatogonium was carefully and properly 
published as a genus. Briefly, the situation is as follows. In 1826, 
Chamisso & Schlechtendal, in enumerating the species of Gentiana 
collected by the Romanzoff expedition, divided that genus into four 
sections, indicated respectively by 1, 2, 3 and 4 asterisks. "The fourth 
section was 
“«**** Corolla rotata 4-5 fida, faux breviter fimbriata, stigmata duo 
utrinque longitudinaliter ovario adnata (suturae valvularum s. spermophoro 
insidentia). Genus Pleurogyna Eschsch. in litt." ! 
Then follow the species: Gentiana rotata, based upon Swertia rotata 
L.; Gentiana Stelleriana, based upon Steller material from eastern Asia 
and upon the Swertia rotata of Pallas, not of Linnaeus; and Gentiana 
carinthiaca, based upon Swertia carinthiaca Wulfen. 
In 1830, Alexander Braun, in an article entitled “ Lomatogonium; 
ein neues Genus für Gentiana carinthiaca Frochl.," ? formally established 
the genus Lomatogonium, clearly differentiating it from both Gentiana 
and Swertia; and in the next year, 1831, Reichenbach took up Lomato- 
1 Cham. & Schl. Linnaea, i. 187 (1826). 
2 A. Br. Flora, xiii. 221 (1830). 
