2 
from a quarter to a full half-inch long, which very well match a 
similar form in Todaro’s Flora Sicula Exsiccata. His var. ilt- 
Jormis needs further investigation of mature specimens of its vari- 
ous forms. Some of the specimens referred to it may belong toa 
variety of the next species, but not the Guadaloupe plant nor that 
of Rusby from Arizona. 
M. APETALUS, Gay.— (FI. Chil., i., 31, t. 1, fig. 1.) It will 
be seen that this older name should be restored. When Mr. 
Bentham sent his name and account of WZ. aristatus to Sir Wm. 
Hooker, the latter recognized the identity of Geyer’s with Gay’s 
Chilian plant ; but, finding petals, discarded the latter’s name as a 
false one. Sir Joseph Hooker in the New Zealand Flora, fol- 
lowed his father, although stating that the specimens are apetalous. 
And Bentham says the same of the Australian plant, which he 
refers to WM. minimus, the M. australis of Mueller, which prob- 
ably belongs to the following variety of the present species; but 
my specimens are too young to prove it. I am convinced that 
the beak, which suggested Bentham’s name, is fallacious as a ; 
character, and that a series may be arranged from the longest 
beaked forms to those which areas beakless as M/. minimus often, 
but not always, is. Consequently, if the name afetal/us may be 
rejected because the species is often petaliferous, so may that of 
aristatus, because the arista or beak is often wanting. Since 
the latter name must subside, we need not insist that the 
name, as well as the character, was published as Bentham’s. So 
that the latter’s incidental mention of it, sixteen years later, as 
“ M. aristatus, Geyer,” whether by mistake or intention, can 
hardly require Mr. Greene to cite the published name as of Geyer. 
Var. LEPTURUS.—I give this name to a series of specimens — 
which have generally been referred to MW. minimus on account of — 
having as short a beak or tip as has the akene of that species, but 
in which the akenes are oblong, narrower, and more carinate on 
the back, and the body thinner walled and more utricular, and the 
seed oblong, as in ordinary J. apetalus, in this even elongated- 
oblong. The best fruiting specimens I possess are those of Lem- 
mon from California (No. 1 of Coll., 1874), and of the Howell’s 
from N. E. Oregon (No. 38 of Coll., 1882). Hartweg’s No. 1629, 
from the Sacramento Valley, Macca s No. 50, from Vancouver's 
