298 



NOTES ON THE INDEX KEWENSIS. 

 By Dr. Otto Kuntze. 



Having inserted the + 5000 "addenda et emendanda" from 

 page 1257-1299 into the body of the Kew Index with its + 375,000 

 names and references, I may say that 1^ per cent, corrections is so 

 low a rate that we ought to admire the Kew Index if there were no 

 more. Indeed the bibhographical work of Mr. Jackson cannot be 

 sufficiently appreciated. But through Sir Joseph Hooker's partly 

 wrong direction of the Kew Index there are, from out of the about 

 120,000 names accepted as valid at least 20,000 false, and there 

 are other great defects in the Kew Index. 



I would not like to return to criticisms already printed in this 

 Journal, although the omission of the first publication-dates to the 

 species and the omission of the synonyms at the right place, namely 

 under the valid species-names, is felt deeply ; Steudel's No)iH'nelator 

 with its synonyms in the right place must still be used for searching 

 synonyms, and this work has not been replaced by the Kew Index 

 as it was the wish of Darwin that it should be. 



I want to mention some points not yet criticised, that I noticed 

 when inserting the 5000 corrections. 



All varieties are omitted and that is very wrong, because many 

 varieties are considered by other authors as species. 



All hybrids are not named by their proper names : (the com- 

 bination of parent-names) but only by synonyms in italics. 



All names of subgenera are omitted, although in case of need 

 they are valid substitutes for invalid genera-names, as has been 

 done sometimes in Bentham & Hooker's Genera Plantarum. 



All Cryptogams are missing. I am not sure if it was the 

 original plan of Darwin, who wished a renewed Steudel's Nomenclator, 

 to exclude the Cryptogams as Sir Joseph Hooker did, who is only 

 responsible for the direction of the work. But there exists indeed, 

 at least to the first edition of Steudel's Nomenclator a second part 

 for Cryptogams published 1824. 



The authors of the Linnean period are poorly or not at all 

 extracted as to genera-names, e. g. Miller's Gardeners' Dictionaries, 

 Haller's Knumeratio Stirpium Helvetiae etc, etc. Only Boehmer's 

 edition of Ludwig's Definitiones (jenernm plantarum of 1760 has been 

 taken more in consideration in the "addenda," whereas the first 

 and second edition of 1737 and 1747 has been used only sometimes. 

 Even Linnaeus' opus princeps, the Systtma plantarum of 1735, was 

 formerly extracted for the Kew Index in a quite insufficient manner 

 and there are given many "addenda" found iu my Revisio (/enerum. 

 plantarum. As my Rev. gen. pi. was published after 1885, Mr. 

 Jackson was perhaps not obliged to extract from it the names over- 

 looked by him, but I have found among the "addenda " the following 

 ones for the first 3 parts of the Kew Index ; they are taken out of 

 my Eev. gen. pL, as there are several genera-names with corrected 

 determinations made at first in my book, e. g. Acosta Lour., Michelia 

 L. 1736 non 1737, Sutera 1807 non 1821 etc. (The list is not com- 



