NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 333 



foray as well as we can, sincerely hoping that it may be the last. The speci- 

 mens which Mr. Buckley has here described having been kindly collected (a 

 few excepted which have not yet been found) by the Botanical Curators, I re- 

 ferred them, in the first instance, to our best instructed agrostologist, Professor 

 George Thurber. His careful and conscientious notes (except in a few in- 

 stances) form the basis and substance of the following report. I have, how- 

 ever, verified them as far as I could ; and I hold myself responsible for the 

 statements herewith presented. If some of my comments be thought severe, 

 it should be understood that Mr. Buckley was duly warned of the injury he 

 was about to infliet upon science, and was besought to submit the specimens 

 of his supposed new species of grasses to some competent agrostologist be- 

 fore publication. This disregard of good counsel and reckless miscalculation 

 of scientific fitness for such undertakings, and the astonishing breach of 

 comity and confidence (to use the gentlest words) by gross appropriation or 

 suppression of the names of Nuttall and others, recorded in a public herba- 

 rium, which the following pages disclose, are traits which seem to illustrate 

 and explain each other. 



Polypogon alopecuroides, Buckley. The first thing to notice is, that 

 Mr. Buckley has suppressed Nuttall's name, under which he communicated 

 the plant to the Academy's herbarium, and doubtless to the Hookerian, if 

 not to other herbaria, viz.: Deyeuxia alopecuroides! Then he has mistaken 

 the genus at least as widely as Nuttall did. In fact, this grass differs from 

 Agrostis exarata, Trin. in nothing notable except in its denser and lobate 

 panicle and in the awn ; which last Bongard detected in some specimens of 

 A. exarata. If distinct, Nuttall's specific name will be adopted, unless the 

 plant is already published under some other; i. e., it will be Agrostis alope- 

 curoides. We have a far larger form of it from Hooker's Oregon duplicates, 

 without a name. 



Vilfa agrostoidea. No specimens so ticketed have yet been found. 

 But one of Sporobolus cryptandrus, ticketed by Mr. Buckley "Agrostis, North- 

 ern Texas," is probably the plant in question. 



Sporobolus (Vilfa) angustus is Sporobolus Indicus, R. Br., Agrostis In- 

 dica, L. Having adopted the genus Vilfa in the preceding and following 

 cases, Mr. Buckley has a curious way of including it under Sporobolus 

 besides. 



Vilfa r i g i d a is Calamagrostis gigantea, Nutt., also C. longifoha, Hook. 



Vilfa (Sporobolus) alba. Here, vice versa, Sporobolus is subordinated to 

 Vilfa ; and the present new species of this double-headed genus is Eatonia 

 obtusata ! 



Sporobolus (Vilfa) arenaceus, (again this side up !) is described from 

 No. 737 of Wright's collection, and the fact suppressed : it is Sporobolus 

 asperifolius, Nees and Meyen, fide Munro. 



Uralepsis (Tricuspis) elongata, which is the same as 2054 of Wright's 

 coll., and 307 of one of Drummond's collections, is Tricuspis trinerviglumis, 

 Munro, MSS., near T. mutica, Torr. 



Vilfa (Sporobolus) varians, described from some specimen of Nuttall's, 

 which is not yet found. 



Sporobolus (Vilfa) diffusissimus is S. airoides Torr. 



Vilfa (Sporobolus) Sabeana is S. Coromandelianus, Kunth (nou Trin.), 

 an old and widely diffused species, to which, according to Col. Munro, belong 

 S. commutatus, Kunth and Trinius, S. argutus, Kunth, S. Arkansanus, Trin., 

 and Vilfa ambigua, Steud. 



1862.] 



