The Nomenclature of Plants. 167 



ority they must be rejected; in many of them the change of the 

 names now used is by no means sufficiently proved: 



Ad I. After Alph. de Candolle had proposed to take the year 

 1737 as the starting point of the priority of genera, many botanists 

 had acknowledged it. But we think that the turning point from the 

 ancient botany to our modern science rests in the introduction of 

 the binominal nomenclature. Therefore, we propose, after a previ- 

 ous communication with Alph. de Candolle, to remove the starting 

 point for both the species as well as the genera as far as to the year 

 1753, resp. 1752, date of the species plantarum ed. I. (1753), with 

 the IV. ed. of the genera plantarum (1752). Before that time the 

 scientific position of Linnaeus is not superior to Tournefort, Rivinus 

 and many other botanists, who often had described and segregated 

 the genera more exactly than he did. 



Ad 2. Many genera have been founded on a picture only, with- 

 out a diagnosis. No doubt by means of it a species sometimes can 

 clearly be made out and recognized; and if the picture is a good 

 one, all the characteristics of the plant can be observed. But a 

 picture can never show the special characteristics alone which raise 

 the genus above the other of its affinity. A genus only gains pri- 

 ority by a verbal diagnosis, and nomina nuda and seminuda are to 

 be rejected; therefore, the following works cannot claim a right of 

 priority: Rumphius, Herbarium Amboinense (1741-1755), Bur- 

 mann. Flora Indica (1768), Patr. Browne, History of Jamaica (1756), 

 Lamarck, Illustration des genres pro parte, etc. 



Ad 3. There are to be conserved Adenia as well as Adenmm, 

 Acnista as well as Acnistus, Alectra as well as Aledryon, Apios as 

 well as Apium, Rubia as well as Rubus, Bellis as well as Bellium, 

 Chloris as well as Chloraea and Chlora, Glyphaea as well as Glyphis 

 and Glyphia, Calopogon as well as Calopogonmm, Atropa as well as 

 Atropis, Galax as well as Galaxia and Galactia, Dand€ as well as 

 Danais, Drimia as well as Drimys, Glechovia as well as Glechon, 

 Hydrothrix as well as Hydroh'iche, Micranthiis as well as Micran- 

 theum, Microtea as well as Microtus^ Platystejnina as well as Platys- 

 iemo7i, Szlvaea as well as Silvia, etc.; we doubt that there is any 

 scholar who will confound them. On the contrary, Tetraclls and 

 Tetracleis, Oxythece and Oxytheca, Epidendrum and Epidendron, 

 Oxycocais and Oxycoccos, Asterocarpus and Astrocarpiis, Peltosteina 

 and Pellistema, are only different modes of spelling the same word, 

 and the newer one is to be refused if they name different genera. 



