The error to which I allude is, that of making 
Tournefourt object to the name. He died in 1708 
and Linnæus was born 1707, at which rate the latter 
must have given the name before he was one year old. 
The principle of the rule of priority in fixing the 
names of objects of natural history seems until of late 
to have been either much misunderstood or else very 
caprieiously used, as we occasionally find, even among 
high authorities, grievous departures from it. The 
late Mr. Don, when writing his Flora Nepalensis 
seems to have so utterly misunderstood it that we 
find him in many instances setting aside defined and 
published names in favour of manuscript ones of 
presumed older date, and in several instances, appa- 
rently acting on the sic volo sic jubeo principle, set- 
ting aside those of DeCandolle merely because he 
thought he could give better ones. On the occasion 
of substituting Hamiltonia for Mr. Brown's Sperma- 
dictyon, he even goes so far as to say, “ nomen Sper- 
madictionis nimis auris terribile est servandum," 
thus constituting himself the censor of what is or is 
not sufficiently euphonious to be borne by the ears 
of future Botanists. A most startling presumption. 
It must, however, be observed, in justice to Mr. 
Don, that that was not the primary reason for the 
name of Hamiltonia superceding Spermadictyon in 
his book, which seems to have originated in the cir- 
cumstance of Dr. Wallich having overlooked the fact 
that pre-occupation only, can be permitted to set aside 
a defined and published name, and as the case affords 
an excellent illustration of the mischief resulting from 
a departure from the law of priority as established 
by definition and publication, I shall, so far as my 
information enables me, endeavour give a history of 
it and trace it to its consequences. 
Roxburgh, in his Manuscript Flora Indica, had 
given the name Hamiltonia to a genus of plants, and 
sent drawings and descriptions of two species so 
named to the India House. : 
One of these was selected by Mr. Brown as Editor, 
for publication in the Coromandel Plants, but in the 
mean time, Willdenow (Sp. Plantar. 4., 1114), had 
pre-occupied the name, he (Brown) therefore chang- 
ed Roxburgh's MS. name and substituted in Rox- 
burgh's name the very appropriate and classically 
constructed name of Spermadictyon, which was ac- 
cordingly published, giving Roxburgh's definition and 
description of the plant, with the plate. The name 
so published ought never afterwards to have been 
disturbed, nor indeed the existence of Hamiltonia, as 
a Roxburgian name, made known. 
Dr. Wallich, however, when editing Dr. Rox- 
burgh's Posthumous Flora, apparently, thinking he 
was not at liberty to alter the MS. retained the super- 
seded name, adding a note, stating that * that wasthe 
genus called Spermadictyon in the Coromandel Plants, 
in consequence of the name Hamiltonia having been 
given by Willdenow (without any good reason in his 
opinion) to Michaux's ria." In so acting he, 
for the time, lost sight of the principle of definition 
and publication, so thoroughly fixing a name that 
nothing short of pre-occupation can authorize its be- 
ing afterwards set aside or changed. But he has 
since corrected his error by restoring Spermadictyon 
in his list of Indian plants as has Steudel in his No- 
menclator Botanicus. 
But the mischief has not stopped there, for Steudel, 
while doing justice to Spermadictyon has, as shall be 
immediately shown, done an equal injustice to Pyru- 
laria in superseding it by Willdenow's Hamiltonia. 
Schultes, Endlicher, and Meisner, on the contrary, 
concur in sacrificing Willdenow's Hamiltonia at the 
shrine of Michaux's Pyrularia, and Spermadictyon at 
that of Roxburgh's Hamiltonia. 
DeCandolle, apparently endeavouring to escape the 
difficulty by steering a middle course, only made mat- 
ters worse. He wishing to preserve Roxburgh's name, 
chooses to forget Willdenow's Hamiltonia, and then 
set about settling the difference between Hamiltonia, 
Roxb. and Spermadictyon, Roxb., which he did by 
quoting as authority for the former, the undefined 
name of Roxburgh's Catalogue of the Calcutta Bot. 
Garden, published in 1814 against the defined one 
of the Coromandel Plants published in 1819. This, 
as already said, only makes the matter worse, for 
while the law declares that an undefined catalogue 
name can never be allowed to take precedence of 
a fully defined and published one, he practically 
declares the reverse to be the correct rule, that is, 
that defined and published names ought to be set 
aside in favour of undefined catalogue ones of earlier 
date. In this proceeding he has, either through igno- 
rance or carelessness, been most improperly followed 
by all subsequent writers on the genus, myself in- 
cluded. Steudel and Wallich being the only ones 
who have taken a correct view of the case. 
Let us now turn to Willdenow's Hamiltonia and 
try it by the same standard. Wallich's note having 
informed me that, in his opinion, the name was given 
without any good reason, I was induced to follow 
up the inquiry to ascertain how far his opinion was 
well founded. The case stands thus. 
Michaux published in 1803, in his North American 
Flora, his genus Pyrularia, duly defined, that is, so 
that it could be recognized by others. Willdenow, 
it wonld appear, had received specimens of the same 
plant named in a letter (I suppose of a prior date), 
Hamiltonia oleifera, and on the strength of this MS. 
priority adopted that name, giving Michaux's ar 
laria pubera as a synonym! Well might Dr. - 
lich in such a case say, “for no good reason,” but 
still, bad as the case is, it did not, as Wallich now 
admits, authorize the restoration of Roxburgh’s name. 
The consequence of this blunder of Willdenow is, that 
both the Hamiltonias must be, indeed are, set aside 
and-the name of that highly respected person does 
not now occupy a nitch in the Botanical temple, 
though both an Indian and American Botanist has 
respectively essayed to place it there: for, curi- 
ously enough, both, in giving the name, had the 
same person in view, Mr. William Hamilton of 
Philadelphia. - 
'The corallaries from all this are sufficiently self evi- 
dent—first, Jussieu—I write the word with reluctance, 
but truth compels me to say that the great and ex- 
cellent Jussieu erred, in so dogmatically overruling 
the law of priority, thereby establishing a dangerous 
precedent. Secondly, he erred still more inexcu- 
sably in assuming the privilege of constituting him- 
self the corrector of Linnæus in the matter of the 
formation of his generic names. Thirdly, Salisbury, 
Lamarck, Redoute, Endlicher, Meisner, and Kunth, 
have all erred to an equal or even greater extent in 
supporting him in this innovation, the consequences of 
which, as we have seen in the case of Willdenow's 
Hamiltonia, and Don's Fl. Nepalensis, have been most 
mischievous. 
[M 7 
