Rydberg: Notes on Rosaceae 325 



collected in Chili and Peru, might have mislabeled the specimens. 

 On the strength of this claim of Bitter's, I have reluctantly adopted 

 his name A. californica. Bitter distinguishes not less than five 

 varieties of this species. Anyone who knows the variability of 

 the plant can see only individual variation in these varieties. 



AGRIMONIA 



Mr. Bicknell* in his paper on Agrimonia states:" Perhaps no 

 one of our long-known plants has more effectually escaped a right 

 understanding by botanists than the familiar Agrimony of the 

 Eastern States, current in local floras and text-books as Agrimonia 

 Eupatoria L." In fact, the genus as a whole was poorly understood 

 here in America, before Mr. Bicknell took up the work on the 

 same, and from the publication of his paper dates really our true 

 conception of the species. It is strange, however, that this should 

 have been the case, when Dr. Wallroth had presented a very good 

 paper on the genus in 1842. It is true that most monographic 

 work done in Europe on North American plants is rather poor 

 and unreliable, and therefore we are liable to ignore such work 

 done abroad. This might have been the reason why Wallroth's 

 species have not been adopted. The writer took up most of 

 Wallroth's names in the North American Flora. That Mr. 

 Bicknell did not do so was unfortunate, as he will now not 

 get the full credit for what his paper really was worth to us. 

 The main reasons for his not taking up Wallroth's names were 

 the following: (1) at that time the unfortunate Madison 

 amendments to the Rochester Code were in force making older 

 varietal names supplant specific names; (2) at that time the 

 names proposed in Muhlenberg's Catalogue were generally re- 

 garded as properly published. In fact, most of them should be 

 regarded as nomina nuda, for the adjectives added to these names 

 evidently were not intended as descriptions, but as a part of the 

 trivial or common name. If these two causes had not influenced 

 Mr. Bicknell, I should not have had occasion to change his 

 nomenclature except in one case, viz. Agrimonia striata Michx., 

 which he had misunderstood. Even in this case, he was really not 

 to blame. See below under that species. 



* Bull. Torrey Club 23: 508. 1896. 



