THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF NEW YORK 



During his travels in that country, then ahiiost unknown, he found 

 a pretty perennial plant, common both wild and under cultivation 

 to which he gave the name Alctris japonica. This is the plant 

 we now know as Niohc japonica or Funkia lancifolia. Later, in 

 1784, Thunberg transferred it to the genus Heuicrocallis, in 

 which position it remained for many years. At length, in 1812, 

 the name Hosta was proposed, a name invalidated in this case by 

 its use, fifteen years earlier, for another genus in the Verbenaceae. 

 In the same year, however, Salisbury proposed Niobe, the earliest 

 available name and the one which should therefore be adopted. 

 Funkia, not published until five years later, has been commonly 

 used, as has Hosta, both of which, as explained above, must give 

 way to Niohc, for unless priority of publication can rule, no 

 stability in botanical nomenclature is possible. In systematic 

 botany this rule is rigidly applied, and it must be as inflexible a 

 procedure in horticultural botany if we want to avoid in the 

 future the great confusion which has existed in the past in the 

 application of names to cultivated plants. In the Index Kewensis. 

 a work indispensable to the working systematic botanist, the name 

 Funkia has been adopted, this arbitrary usage being in great part 

 responsible for the continued employment of the name. 



The genus divides itself into two rather well-marked groups 

 which were considered genera by Salisbury, under the names of 

 Xiobc and Bryoclcs. The former was applied to the plant known 

 here as Niobe plantaginca, in which the flowers are white and 

 have the filaments adnate to the tube for part of their length, 

 while the name of Bryoclcs was given to what is here called 

 Niobe coendea, a group including at the present time several 

 other species, in which the flowers are smaller, colored, and have 

 the filaments free. It is said that in Niobe plantaginca there is 

 present a small bracteole at the base of the pedicel, but I find 

 this frequently wanting, so attach little value to it as a generic 

 character. In view of the above, I find it better to adopt the 

 generally accepted view of the present day, and consider the 

 two groups as parts of one genus, which may be briefly char- 

 acterized as follows : 



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