47 
The Gender of varietal Names, ~\n answer to the editor of the 
Gardeners' Chronicle, who asked Mr. DeCandolle's opinion as to 
whether the name of a variety should conform in gender to the gen- 
eric name when the abbreviation " var." follows the specific, the dis- 
tmguished codifier of botanical namenclature answers as follows: 
"I have sometimes put to myself the same question as to the gen- 
der of the names of varieties, and it is most likely that in practice I 
have resolved it sometimes in one way and sometimes in another, but I 
have just been looking to the practice of authors of repute, and I ob- 
serve that, in general, they have made the varietal name conform to 
the gender of the generic name, thus: 
II Nasturtium amphibium, a indivisum, DC, Syst., ii., p. 117. 
• 'I Thymus Serpyllum, ^ montanus, Benth., in Prodr,, xii. 
'Phyllanthus simplex, J3 oblongifolius, Miiller, in Prodr,, xv., &c. 
If the word 'varietas,' or the abbreviation ' var.' be employed, it 
seems most correct to make the abjective feminine. The use of 
Greek letters to indicate varieties, thus: a^ y?, ;/, corresponds to the 
employment of figures, which have no gender. On the other hand, 
when the idea is expressed by a qualifying 'var.' or ' varietas* a sen- 
tence is made which must be constructed in the correct grammatical 
manner. The name of the variety becomes in this case an adjective 
qualifying ^varietas^' and should therefore take a feminine termina- 
tion. English writers generally use the abbreviation * var/ Lin- 
naeus indicated the varieties by the Greek letters, «:, ft, y, without, 
as a rule, adding any other epithet. Continental authors have mainly 
confirmed to Linnean usage, and do not write * var.' This is in con- 
formity with the omission of *gen/ before the generic, or 'sp.' before 
the specific name." 
Medullary 
J 
uary meeting of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences Dr. 
Rothrock called attention to some experiments made by Mr. Jrank 
Day, in the laboratory of the University of Pennsylvania, on the re- 
lation of the medullary ray to the strength of timber. Mr. Day had 
found that it required just about twice as much force (say 1,130 
pounds) to pull apart a square inch of live oak, if the force ran 
parallel with these rays, as it would if the force were applied at right- 
angles to them. 
What was true of the live oak was also largely true of other tim- 
k^^' ^^^ buttonwood {Flatanus occidentalism was remarkable for 
the development of its medullary rays, and also for the difficulty 
of splitting the wood at right-angles to them. 
Mr, Day's experiments also proved that there existed great differ- 
ences m the quality of the material of the woody fibre; for in timber 
^here the relative proportion of wood and ducts could well be corn- 
Pared^ and where the fibres were of equal size throughout, differences 
m strength were to be found. 
Botanists of short stature will be interested in a statement made in 
the April Naturalist "that no obituary notices of scientific men of a 
length of a page or less have ever been declined by its editors." 
The Syracuse Botanical Club.— During the past year the Syra- 
cuse Botanical Club has added over one hundred and fifty mounted 
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