﻿Porella once more. 



I. By Auguste Le Jolis. 



A. Howe, having 



Ameri 



of Porella/' reprinted from the Bulletin* of the Torrey Botan- 

 ical Club, November, 1897, in which I am somewhat criticised, 

 I beg leave to present a brief reply in the same Bulletin. 



In his paper, Mr. Marshall A. Howe concludes, from the iden- 

 tification of the specimen in the Dillenian herbarium, that the 

 name Porella must " stand as the name of the genus." I cannot 

 agree with such a deduction. If, owing to that identification, the 

 specific question has long ago been resolved, the generic question is 

 quite another thing, and it stands thus : Is the Dillenian lycopodi- 

 aceous genus Porella a previous equivalent to the modern genus 

 Madotheca ? Is its generic character the true generic character of 

 Madotheca f That is the question. 



Dillen has established his genus on " naked antheraceous cap- 

 sules, without operculum or pedicel, dehiscing by several pores 

 through the sides, and emitting a farinaceous powder," whence 

 the name Porella. Consequently, any plant which does not bear 

 such capsules, with several farinaceous pores, cannot be entered 

 in the genus Porella nor can be entitled to bear that significant 



name Porella. 



It is to be considered that Dillen, after ranging his Porella 



pecimen of the 



same species in his genus " Lichenastrum " (=/<* 



M 



495- pi. 71. f. 2j), the specimen of which, in the Dillenian 

 herbarium, according to the opinion of S. O. Lindberg and Prof. 

 S. H. Vines, certainly belongs to the same species as the specimen 

 of « Porella pinnata." In fact, Porella was a mere blunder of Dil- 

 len, and a name which is the expression of such a gross blunder 

 cannot stand as the name of a modern scientific genus. 



I may add that Mr. Marshall A. Howe seems to have some- 

 what misunderstood my papers on Porella, for I have never written 



(95) 



