90 REVUE BRYOLOGIQUE. 
diverse groups as lhose we now cnll Æadula, Scapania and 
Plagiochila. For his names, he merely opened Michelis Nova 
Genera Plantarum , and from among ihe names of Michelis 
patrons at the foot of the plates, selected at random one for 
each of his new genera ; without even changing the masculine 
terminalion to the feminine, as is customary—as was indeed the 
practice of Micheli himself, e. gr. from Tozzius, Tozzia. Gray's 
work fills two octavo volumes, is well printed, and is adorned 
with several plates in the introduelory norlion, On morpho- 
logy ; but it is so obviously and entirely a compilation from 
other sources, with no new facts added, or any novelty 
beyond an eccentric terminology and an occasional arbi- 
trary change of name, that it has been completely neglected, 
even by his own countrymen, who have allowed his very 
names to fall into oblivion. 
The dogma of the absolute sanctity of the earliest generic 
or specific name is » comparatively modern invention. That 
_itis, generally speaaing, Worthy of adoption there can be 
no doubt, not so much as an act of justice or courtesy to au- 
© thors as for the sake of settling the synonymy, and out of a 
= multitude of names to have some certain g'ide to the selec- 
tion of the only one needed. But if it were claimed solely 
as a right of authors, it might safely be asked if there were 
no duties the fulfillment of which should entitle an author — 
or his successors for him — to prefer that claim ? That there 
are such daties is so plain that J need not stay lo point them 
out. For the present, however, it seems that, whether the 
duties have been fulfilled or not, the right of preference of the 
most ancient name is the absolute rule of botanists. To apply 
this to the subject of the present memoir, we find Gray the. 
_ first io give a generic name to that group of European Jun- 
germaniæ, which has à perianth entirely concealed by und: 
‘adherent to the involucre. His name ÂWardius is certainlÿy 
too near Nardus, a genus of grasses, but modified to Vardia 
— jo bring it into accord with universal usage, in personal 
names applied to genera of plants and animals — it has been 
adopted by Lindberg and others. Gray's definition of Nardia 
is as follows : « Anthers clustered. Calyx terminal imbedded 
«in the perichætial leaves ». Under this genus he includes 3 
species : Jg. scalaris Schrad., Jy. compressa Hook., and Jg. 
emarginata Ehrh. se Rae VAE 
Two years after the appearance of Gray’s work, Dumortier 
evidently in entire ignorance of his predecessor, and 
dmost equally innocent of any knowledge of the plants A ea 
cept from figures and descriptions —in his « Commentationes 
tint à posée : ew division of Jungermania int 
omprises two genera of Dumo: 
