THE BAHAMA FLOTIA 113 



this time in conjunction with another New York botanist — a flora 

 of the Bahamas, marked by the careful completeness which charac- 

 terized the earlier work, and produced in equally admirable style. 

 The two volumes naturally correspond in matters of detail : hence the 

 nomenclature in both is that favoured by some American botanists in 

 opposition to the more generally adopted Vienna Rules, and Phrag- 

 mites Phragmites, Moringa Moringa and the like find place. 



It is obvious that only those acquainted with the region to whose 

 flora the book is devoted are competent to criticize the work from a 

 botanical standppint ; all therefore that the present writer can do is 

 to comment brielly on such of its contents as suggest themselves for 

 rem irk while turning over the pages. There are several novelties : 

 Nidema, an anagram of Dinema, is established for Epidendrwm 

 Otionis Rchb. f., which thus constitutes a new genus ; Neothymopsiit 

 for Tin/ mops is of Bentham, not of Jaubert and Spach, the type species 

 being Tetranthus thymoides Griseb. ; Neobracea, a monotypic genus, 

 replaces Bracea of Britton not of King. Among the new species 

 are three out of five in Gruettarda, five out of eight in Borreria, 

 and two out of three in Oncidium; other novelties are Dolichos 

 insularis, Poly gala Wilson i, Qerardia bracteosa, Lobelia lucayana, 

 JSucyolia inayuensis. The cooperation of numerous botanists is 

 acknowledged; Dr. J. H. Barnhart, who elaborated the Lentibu- 

 lariacecB, should be added to the list. 



The principle " once a synonym always a synonym " leads to the 

 supersession of Gorouopiis of Gaertner (1791) in favour of Garcira 

 Medic. (1792), as a consequence of the employment of the former 

 name generically for Plantago Goronoptis in the fourth edition of 

 the Abridgement of Miller's Gardener s Dictionary (1754) : should 

 any British botanist be moved to adopt this principle, Carara didyma 

 Britton will replace Goronopus didyma Gaertn. A new name — 

 Groton rosmarinoides Millsp. — is substituted for G. rosmarinifolius 

 Griseb., on account of the earlier existence of G. rosmarinifolius 

 Salisb. : but this latter has no claim to recognition ; it is a synonjmi 

 o-iven, in accordance with Salisbury's practice of substitution, to 

 the alreaclv existing G. linearis Jacq., and is thus " stillboi-n." 

 Coccolobis is substituted for Coccoloba, with a reference to Patrick 

 Browne, who so wrote the name; but that author gives no generic 

 description, and Fawcett and ltendle — we think rightly — ignore it 

 on that ground. Under Gassia baliamensis Mill.," C. bahamensis 

 latifolia Benth. Trans. Linn. Soc." is quoted as a synonym. This 

 appears to us objectionable on three grounds. In the first place, 

 Bentham assuredly did not anticipate the modern school which 

 favours trinominal nomenclature ; secondly, he indicated a doubt — - 

 "Var. ? latifolia." Our third criticism is more far-reaching: it 

 relates to the omission of "in" before the citation of a periodical in 

 which an author has published a paper — a method that occurs through- 

 out this and other recent volumes of transatlantic origin and in which 

 we see no advantage. 



We note that, as in the Flora of Bermuda, each plant is 

 provided with a name more or less in English ; these are to be dis- 

 tinguished from real English or American names — the latter, many of 



