118 safford: genus annona 



introduced into the rock and is not an ordinary decomposition 

 product. 



The known representatives of -the subrang tuolumnose are 

 not numerous, there being only three listed in Washington's 

 tables 4 of which one, the albite diorite of Douglas Island, is con- 

 siderably altered. This fact and the presence of anatase in the 

 Nevada rock are thought to warrant the publication of this brief 

 petrographic note. 



BOTANY- —The genus Annona: the derivation of its name and itb 

 taxonomic subdivisions. W. E. Safford, Bureau of Plant 

 Industry. 



The genus Annona, which includes the custard apple {Annona 

 reticulata) and the soursop (Annona muricata), was described by 

 Plumier (1703) under the name of Guanabanus, which he adopted 

 from guanabano, the vernacular name of one of the species on the 

 island of Santo Domingo, published by Oviedo in his account of 

 the fruit trees of the New World (1535). 



Linnaeus was at first inclined to accept as the name of this 

 genus Anona, from the vernacular name anon, or hanon, applied 

 to another species, and used by various early authors; but in his 

 Hortus Cliffortianus (1737) he rejects both Guanabanus and 

 Anona, as barbarous words, and substitutes for them the classic 

 Latin Annona. This name, signifying "the year's harvest" 

 of fruit, wine, etc., he thought particularly applicable, on account 

 of the edible fruit of the Annona, which is relished by the natives 

 of the countries where it grows. 1 This was in accordance with the 

 principal of rejecting barbarous names, which he afterwards de- 

 fended in his Philosophic Boianique (1788) 2 . 



4 Washington, H. S.: Chemical analyses of igneous rocks. Profess. Paper, 

 U. S. Geol. Survey No. 14, p. 199. 1903. 



1 "Guanabanus et Anona sunt vocabula barbara, ut tamen servetur sonus An- 

 nonam dico obfructum incolis gratum." — Linnseus, Hort. Cliff. 222. 1737. 



2 "Nous adoptons comme nouveaux nes des noms Barbares, auxquels nous avions 

 donne l'exclusion, lorsque nous rendons nouveaux des noms a exclure, en les for- 

 mant du Grec ou du Latin .... Corossol, Annona (Anona des Americains), 

 de la moisson."— Linnaeus, Phil. Bot. 208. 1788. 



