The Nomenclature of Plants. 167 
ority they must be rejected; in many of them the change of the 
names now used is by no means sufficiently proved: 
Adi. After Alph. de Candolle had proposed to take the year 
1737 as the starting point of the priority of genera, many botanists 
had acknowledged it. But we think that the turning point from the 
ancient botany to our modern science rests in the introduction of 
the binominal nomenclature. Therefore, we propose, after a previ- 
ous communication with Alph. de Candolle, to remove the starting 
‘point for both the species as well as the genera as far as to the year 
1753, resp. 1752, date of the species plantarum ed. I. (1753), with 
the IV. ed. of the genera plantarum (1752). Before that time the 
scientific position of Linnaeus is not superior to Tournefort, Rivinus 
and many other botanists, who often had described and segregated 
the genera more exactly than he did. 
Ad 2. Many genera have been founded on a picture only, with- 
out a diagnosis. No doubt by means of it a species sometimes can 
_ clearly be made out and recognized; and if the picture is a good 
one, all the characteristics of the plant can be observed. But a 
picture can never show the special characteristics alone which raise 
the genus above the other of its affinity. A genus only gains pri- 
ority by a verbal diagnosis, and nomina nuda and seminuda are to 
be rejected; therefore, the following works cannot claim a right of 
priority: Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinense (1741-1755), Bur- 
mann, Flora Indica (1768), Patr. Browne, History of Jamaica (1756), 
Lamarck, Illustration des genres pro parte, etc. 
Ad 3. There are to be conserved Adenia as well as Adenium, 
Acnista as well as Acnistus, Alectra as well as Alectryon, Apios as 
well as Apium, Rubia as well as Rubus, Bellis as well as Bellium, 
Chloris as wellas Chloraea and Chlora, Glyphaea as well as Glyphis 
and Glyphia, Calopogon as well as Calopogonium, Atropa as well as 
Atropis, Galax as well as Galaxia and Galactia, Danaé as well as 
Danais, Drimia as well as Drimys, Glechoma as well as Gilechon, 
HAydrothrix as well as Hydrotriche, Micranthus as well as Mficran- 
- theum, Microtea as well as Microtus, Platystemma as well as Platys- 
- temon, Silvaea as well as Silvia, etc.; we doubt that there is any 
scholar who will confound them. On the contrary, Zetrac/is and 
Tetracleis, Oxythece and Oxytheca, Epidendrum and Eptdendron, 
Oxycoccus and Oxycocces, Asterocarpus and Astrocarpus, Peltostema 
and Peltistema, are only different modes of spelling the same word, 
and the newer one is to be refused if they name different genera. 
