74 Writing's of Edzvard L. Greene. [zoe 



synonym always a synonym " plan. The fruit of Pickeringia 

 seems to be so far unknown and may alter its place in 

 classification. The pod is from 1J2 to 2]4 inches, 5-9-ovuled, 

 2-4-seeded, flattened, constricted between the seeds, but not 

 jointed, dehiscent along the ventral side; seeds with thin foli- 

 aceous cotyledons, and rather abundant endosperm. 



Viscainoa Greene had long been known as Staphylea ? geni- 

 culata Kell. Everyone knew that it did not belong to Staphyleaj 

 but as only old fruiting specimens were known, no one but Mr. 

 Greene ventured to give it a new name. It is one of a series of 

 monotypic or restricted genera all very near Guaiacum. 



Mr. Greene divides Prunus into Cerasus, Prunus, and Amyg- 

 dalus; adopts Sorbus instead of Pyrus and separates Malus. All 

 this has been done before and rejected. 



The separation of Spiraea into a half dozen or more genera 

 will commend itself to such botanists as appreciate very fine 

 distinctions and take pleasure in a complicated synonymy. 

 One of these genera, Eriogynia, deserves some notice. Mr. 

 Greene says: 



" I had long suspected that Bongard's paper on the vegetation 

 of Sitka, read in the St. Petersburg Academy on the fourth of 

 May, 183 1, must have been printed and distributed before 1833; 

 in which case it would antedate much of the first volume of 

 Hooker's Flora. Dr. Otto Kuntze's careful and extensive 

 researches into bibliography have brought forth the fact that 

 Bongard's paper was indeed distributed before the end of 1831. 

 It is therefore inevitable that Lutkea must displace Eriogynia."* 



Otto Kuntze as his authority for the earlier date of Bongard 

 says that, according to a statement of De Candolle, Bongard's 

 paper had been alreadj^ noticed by him in 1831. 



It has already been shown on a previous page that a large 

 part of the first volume of Hooker's Flora, Bor-iVm. was quoted 

 by page and plate in volumes issued in 1831 and in 1832. 



It is a fact which seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. 

 Greene, that contemporary botanists, even those who would 

 apparently be the first to know, make no such claim; for instance, 

 Walpers Repertorium ii, 53, published in 1843, quotes Bongard 



* Pitt. ii. 219. 



