PRIORITY OF KELLOGG's GENUS MARAH. 521 



PRIORITY OF DR. KELLOGG'S GENUS MARAH OVER 

 MEGARRHIZA Toir. 



BY MARY K. CUERAN. 



A recent paper^ by Mr. Watson, in which he reaffirms the 

 genus Ifegarrhiza Torr., renders necessary the following 

 statement of the date and circumstances of publication of 

 the first volume of the Proceedings of this Society, more 

 especially as silence on our part would do injury to our ven- 

 erable pioneer botanist recently dead. 



That the eminent author of the above paper has been 

 misled by the ambiguous language of some of our publica- 

 tions is quite possible; his own is however equally so, for 

 as will be noticed, although seeming to deny the priority of 

 Marah, he does not specifically do so, and fails to give reasons 

 for his preference of 3Iegarrlii%a. 



Mr. Watson says : 



' ' In the years 1854 and 1855 the same plant and similar 

 Californian species were collected by the botanists of the 

 Pacific Kailroad surveys, and specimens were submitted to 

 Dr. Torrey for determination. Some of these species were 

 also known to Dr. Kellogg, of San Francisco, and in March, 

 1855, he described one of them under the name Marah 

 muricatus, noting at the same time its near relationship to 

 Echinocijstis lohata. In June, however, of the same year, he 

 appears to have silently discarded or to have forgotten his 

 new genus, for he then describes another species of the 



*The Genera Echinocystis, Megarrhiza and Echinopepon : Sereno Watson. 

 Bull. Torr. Clnb. XIV. " 155. August, 1887. 



