ON SPARGANIUM. 



235 



The S. nutans L. Spec. Plant., is unquestionably an aggregate 

 name, intended to include, so far as we can gather the purpose of 

 Linne, all the floating forms ; and including, according to the 

 synonymy given, two perfectly distinct species. (The object of 

 previous notes on this name has not been to strongly advocate its 

 retention, but rather to insist that the name must be applied as in 

 Flo. Danica Suppl., or dropped altogether.) It has been remarked 

 that the second and third synonyms quoted in the ' Species Plati- 

 tarum ' do not belong to the plant now known as 8. nutans L. ; this 

 is true enough, for one at least of them belongs to S. minimum 

 Fries; and it may be added that the 8. nutans of Linn. Herb, is 

 also S. minimum Fries, accompanied by a scrap which, when I 

 examined the plants some six years ago, I was not able to deter- 

 mine with certainty. But when attempting to ascertain whether 

 there exist any grounds on which an aggregate name can fairly be 

 used in a segregate sense, it will hardly do to take into consideration 

 tne second and third synonyms while practically ignoring the first, 

 all three of them belonging to the ante-binomial period. Now the 

 first synonym quoted in the ' Species Plantarum ' is Linne's own 

 Sparganium foliis natantibus plano-convexis, Flo. Lapp. ed. i. p. 271, 

 at the time it was described, a new species. The description given 

 in the ' Flora Lapponica ' is, of course, not quite what would be 

 written by a specialist in the genus at the present day ; still, so far 

 as it goes, it may very well represent the plant now known as 

 S. natans L. ; there is nothing in the description antagonistic to its 

 use in this sense, while several cbaracters given are quite distinctive. 

 But there is another point in connection with the Flo. Lapp, plant 

 which is of equal importance, while it does not admit of any doubt ; 

 and that is that tbe description is beyond question absolutely in- 

 applicable to 8. ujfine Schniz., and still more inapplicable to 

 8. minimum Fries. This being the case, I aver that if the name 

 S. nutans L. is to be retained at all, it must be applied in the sense 

 of the first synonym quoted in ' Species Plantarum,' ignoring the 

 second and third synonyms in favour of the first ; not ignoring the 

 first, Linne's own, synonym in favour of the second and third, 

 which refer to other plants. The name is certainly more deserving 

 of retention than many other Linnean names still used by some 

 writers ; moreover, its meaning is now pretty well known, while 

 most modern botanists have seen the errors of their ways, and have 

 ceased to apply it either to .S'. ujfine or to S. minimum. An exception, 

 however, is to be found in Dr. Meinshausen, who, in his " Die Spar- 

 ganien Russlands " (' Bull, de la Soc. Imper. des Nat. de Moscow,' 

 1889, No. 1), makes S. ujfine to be simply a synonym of 8. nutans 

 L. Dr. Meinshausen, however, scarcely takes us beyond the time 

 of Fries' writings, while our knowledge of the genus has certainly 

 greatly increased since that time ; nor does he even quote the 

 plates, in Flo. Danica Suppl., of the Scandinavian species ; and 

 however few references may be given, these plates, at least, do not 

 admit of being passed over in any modern review dealing with tho 

 more boreal European forms. It may be added that Dr. Meins- 

 hausen's acquaintance with S. affine appears to be slight, which is, 



