Howe: Phycological studies 579 



Coccocladus occidentalis Conqiicrantii M. A. Howe, Bull. Torrey 



Club 31 : 96. 1904. 

 Coccocladus occidentalis laxiis M. A. Howe, /. c. 95. //. 6.f. 1 , J. 



Batophora Oerstedi occidentalis (Harv.) 



Dasycladus occidentalis Harv. Ner. Bor.-Am. 3: 38. pi. 41B. 



1858. 

 Botryophora occidentalis J. Ag. Till Alg. Syst. 5 : 141. 1887. 

 Coccocladus occidentalis Cramer, Neue Denkschr. Schweiz. Naturf. 



Ges. 30: —(37)- 1887. 



The discovery that Batophora Oerstedi was published by J. 

 Agardh four years previously to Harvey's Dasycladus occidentalis, 

 and that it was apparently forgotten even by J. Agardh himself, is 

 a good illustration of the surprises which must now and then 

 await any one who is partial to the cause of priority in botanical 

 nomenclature. In 1854 J. Agardh published a very full descrip- 

 tion both of " Batophora, J. Ag. mscr. Gen. nov. ex Siphonearum 

 familia inter Oliviam et Dasycladum intermedium" (/. c. 107) and 

 of its single species, Batophora Oerstedi, " Hab. ad radices Rhizo- 

 phorae Mangle in sinu substagnante ' Krauses lagoon ' dicto, ad 

 Insulam St. Crucis : Oersted." In 1887, in publishing "Botry- 

 ophora J. Ag. mscr.," he alludes to his already having designated 

 the plant Botryophora Oerstedi in a collection of algae made by 

 Oersted, even before Harvey published Dasycladus occidentalis, 

 but there is no reference to his having already actually printed a 

 description of the proposed new genus under a somewhat different 

 generic name and this fact appears to have been overlooked, so far 

 as we can discover, by all subsequent phycologists and bibliog- 

 raphers. If any evidence were needed that this omission on the 

 part of Agardh was due simply to a lapse of memory and not to 

 any intent to ignore, it would be furnished by his attitude toward 

 certain other species and names published in the same paper.* 



Possibly it maybe objected that "Batophora" is a misprint 

 for the " Botryophora " of thirty-three years later. To this it may 

 be replied that " Batophora " is well formed etymologically, is fully 



* E.g., Bryopsis Duchassaingii ] . Ag. Ofvers. Kongl. Vet.-Akad. Forh. n : 107. 

 1854. — "Hoc nusquam a me publici juris factum, jamdudum oblitum credidissem "' 

 (Till Alg. Syst. 5: 31. 1887). 



