I04 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [august 



cone from the Chattanooga shales of the Waverly Group (Lower- 

 most Mississippian) west of Junction City, Boyle County, Ken- 

 tucky, which they named Lepidostrohus Fischeri, but for this Scott 

 has since proposed instead the name L. kentuckiensis (29) after 

 Zeiller had called his attention to the fact that Renault (22) 

 had used this combination in 1890 for an impression from the 

 Commentry Basin of France. 



Another case to which attention should be called has to do 

 with the use of the term Lepidocarpon by Scott (26) for the well 

 known seed-bearing strobilus from the Coal Measures of Great 

 Britain, for this name in the form of Lepidocarpus, which by the 

 generally accepted rules of nomenclature must be regarded as the 

 same term, has already been employed first by Adanson in 1763 

 for a genus of African Proteaceae now included in the genus 

 Scolymocephalus; by Weinmann in 1747 and again by Korthals 

 in 1855 for a genus of tropical Rosaceae included now in the genus 

 Ferolia Barrere (1741). It is with much hesitation that I disturb 

 a term of such standing as Lepidocarpon, and except for yet another 

 case of the prior use of this term generically I should not have done 

 it, for such procedure is certain to cause annoyance and sometimes 

 irritation as well. I refer to the use of the term Lepidocarpus by 

 Rothpletz (24) in 1880 for the sporangia of Lepidodendra from the 

 Culm of Saxony, so closely comparable to the use made of it by 

 Scott that we believe that it should not have been used in its 

 present form in the sense proposed by the latter. 



Geological Laboratory 

 Johns Hopkins University 



LITERATURE CITED 



1. Arber, Mrs. Agnes, An anatomical study of the Paleozoic cone genus 

 Lepidostrohus. Trans. Linn. Soc. II. Bot. 8:205-238. pis. 21-27. 1914. 



2. Benson, Margaret, The sporangiophore, a unit of structure in the 

 Pteridophyta. New Phytol. 7:143-149. jigs. 25, 26. 1908. 



3. Berry, E. W., Article on Paleobotany in New International Encyclopedia. 



1915- 



4. , The classification of vascular plants. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 



3:330-333- 1917- 



