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BIBLIOGEAPHICAL NOTES. 

 XVI. — Fabkicius' 'Enumeratio Plantarum Horti Helmstadiensis.' 



The names published by Heister in his Systema Plantarmn 

 (1748) are of course not taken up by those who adopt 1753 as the 

 starting-point of nomenclature. It seems, however, to have been 

 overlooked by many workers that Heister's names were brought 

 into use by Fabricius, his successor in the care of the Helmstadt 

 Garden, who published two editions of an Knmneratio Methodica 

 Plantarum Horti Medici Helimtadiensis, dated respectively 1759 and 

 1763. A " third edition " issued in 1776 after his death is a mere 

 reprint, to which a supplement of twenty-four pages is added ; to 

 this no author's name is appended, but it is of no importance, 

 being merely of such plants in Linn. Sp. PI. ed. 2 as had been 

 added to the Garden. In his preface Fabricius pays a high and 

 well-deserved tribute to Heister, whose Systema is an interesting 

 and suggestive little volume. 



Not only are the names published by Fabricius to a considerable 

 extent ignored in the Index Kewensis, but they seem to have 

 escaped the notice of nomenclaturists at home and abroad. The 

 transatlantic reformers to whom we owe the American Check-list, 

 and their chief, Dr. Britton, in his Illustrated Flora, make, so far 

 as I have consulted them, no reference to the Enumeratio; and 

 while they rightly disqualify Heister's names on account of their 

 date, it does not seem to have occurred to them that these names 

 might have obtained currency after 1753. The Berlin rales 

 doubtless exclude such names ; but both American and English 

 systematists must take note of them, and I suspect that a careful 

 investigation of the two editions of Fabricius will result in a good 

 many changes iu the American Check-list and elsewhere. Some of 

 these will result in the retention of well-known names which the 

 application of the time-limit of 1753 has seemed to exclude ; others 

 show that the introducers of new and strange names on the score 

 of priority have not arrived at finality in their researches, although 

 they have added considerably to the stock of useless and unneces- 

 sary synonymy. The authority for certain names will also have to 

 be changed ; thus Meihomia, which appears in the Check-list as of 

 " Adans. Fam. PL ii. 509 (1763)," should stand, as cited by Mr. 

 Hiern in the Welwitsch Catalogue, "Heister ex Fabric. Enum. 

 PI. Hort. Helmstad. ed. i. 168 (1759)." 



One or two examples will show the kind of change which may 

 be expected when the claims of Fabricius have been duly con- 

 sidered, and for this purpose I have chosen names which appear 

 in our British floras. 



The name Specnlaria, published by Heister in 1748, was taken 

 up by Alphonse De CandoUe in 1830 — a publication which is 

 antedated (Heister's name being disqualified by time-limit) by 

 Legousia of Durande, Fl. Bourgogne, i. 371 (1782). This was 

 taken up by S. F. Gray (Nat. Arr. ii. 110 (1821) ), and is adopted 

 (misspelt Legouzia) by Dr. Britton both in the Check-list and in his 



