r 



BULLETIN 



OF THE 



TORREY BOTANICAL-CLUB 



Vol, XV.] New York, November 2, 1888. [No. II 



The Genus Hicoria of Rafinesque. 



By N. L. Rritton. 



' Scoria {iomentosa, mucronata, alba, pyriformis, globosa, &"€.) 



Jiiglans alba L,, tonnenlosa, mucronata, Mich., &c. The liick- 

 ory." 



This is what Mr. Rafinesque is made to say in the Medical 



Repository, 2d hexade, Vol. v., p. 352, in the year 1808, under 



the title " Prospectus of two intended works on North American 

 Botany." 



Those who do not regard priority of pubh'cation as the all- 

 important item in biological nomenclature will doubtless consider 

 the facts and conclu.sions here presented as entirely uncalled for, 

 and will object to them on the ground of unnecessary introduc- 

 tion of new binomials for very familiar plants. While regretting 

 the fact that in proposing changes of this kind it is quite impos- 

 sible to please everybody, I am also assured that a large number 

 01 botanists will cordially welcome any move to restore old 

 "ames, inasmuch as this tends to bring nomenclature to a stable 

 basis — a result worth much momentary inconvenience. I am 

 thus encouraged in callincr the attention of American botanists to 



th 



^annesque's generic name for the hickories, and am persuaded to 

 believe that the literary recognition thus awarded is only too 

 l^ng delayed. 



The hickories are among the most characteristic elements of 

 e existing North American flora, and together form a genus as 

 "larked in structure as it is in geographical distribution, being 

 entirely confined to East America, with two species occurring in 

 Mexico. For some reason the older botanists failed to recognize 

 their generic validity. They, without exception, grouped the 

 hickories with the real walnuts, regarding and describing all as 



