238 ON MSS. NAMES AND NOMINA NUDA. 



B. sterilis, L. — One of the commonest grasses by dry roadsides 

 and on warm banks. 



B. racemosus, L. — By the road to St. Mabyn from Amble. 



B. commutatus, Schrad. — Near St. Mabyn Village ; St. Kew, in 

 many places ; between St. Endellion and Port Isaac. I am 

 inclined to consider both this and B. racemosus indigenous species 

 to Devon and Cornwall. 



B. mollis, b. (jlabrescens. — In a field of grass near Helland; 

 near St. Mabyn. 



Lomaria Sjncant, Desv. — Near Cakeval, St. Kew. 



Asjyleniwn lanceolatum, Huds. — A plant or two on a wall very 

 near the town of Bodmin, by the road to Laimceston, June, 1882. 



Aspidiuju acidcatum, Sm. — Hedge-banks by the road near Cake- 

 val, St. Kew ; in one place between St. Endellion Church and 

 Port Isaac. 



A. angulare, Willd. — Commoner in the tract than I supposed 

 when I noticed its occurrence at St. Mabyn, &c. (' Journ. Bot.,' 

 1880, p. 298). Helland; St. Kew, in many places. 



Lastrea Filix-mas, Reich., c. Burreri. — Pencarrow. 



ON MSS. NAMES AND NOMINA NUDA. 

 By Henry Trimen, M.B., F.L.S. 



Mr. Britten's remarks in the February number on the in- 

 attention of botanists to Art. 50 of the "Laws of Botanical 

 Nomenclature" will do good if they contribute towards bringing 

 about a general conformity in practice, which for convenience' sake 

 is much to be desired. 



But the writer of the note has mixed up two distinct things — 

 first publication and subsequent quotation. The botanist who 

 first publishes a name and descri^Dtion of a species cannot, if the 

 plant has been carefully worked out and named in MS. by a 

 previous botanist, neglect to use his name and acknowledge its 

 source. This is a spontaneous act of courtesy and justice, and no 

 "Eule" can affect the practice. Mr. Britten mentions the Wel- 

 witsch collections, and certainly it is impossible that any one who 

 had the advantage of profiting by the MS. descriptions and notes 

 of that accurate botanist could help adopting his names and 

 authority. 



The question of the use of nomina nuda, names printed without 

 descriptions, is much the same. These names are not "published" 

 in a scientific sense, but their claim to adoption and recognition 

 may often be very strong, and the systematist who first describes 

 the species cannot neglect them. Thus when Mr. Hiern, in 1876, 

 first properly published the species of Coffee already well known as 

 Cojf'ea liber lea, Hort. Bull., he did well to adopt that nomen nudum 

 from a nurseryman's catalogue, instead of mventing a new name. 

 But I think that botanists now are correct in writing C. liberica, 



