﻿96 Le Jolis-Howe: Porella once more 



4< that Dickson considered his Jungerman nia Porella to be different 

 from the Porella of Dillenius"; on the contrary, I have said that 

 Dickson, having compared his Jitngetmannia with the specimen of 

 Dillen, did find out that the two plants were alike. 



I may also give notice that my own copy of " Dillenii Historia 

 Muscorum" is the editio princeps of 1741, and that I have not 

 seen the reprints of 1763 and 181 1, to which Mr. Marshall A. 

 Howe has only had access ; I am then ignorant if those reprints 

 or reproductions of the plates are quite identical with the standard 

 original edition. 



As to the expression "Porella pinnata L.," it seems most un- 

 reasonable thus to point out Linne as the author of the genus and 

 species, when he himself declares that he has never seen the plant, 

 gives no description of it, and quotes only the Dillenian name, 

 affixing to it the sign t, meaning that the plant is thoroughly 

 unknown to him. 



Cherbourg, January 9, 1898. 



II. By Marshall A. Howe. 



While the author of the paper which M. Auguste Le Jolis has 

 honored.with the foregoing comments believes that the chief end 

 of botanical science is the study of plants rather than of plant- 

 names, a sentiment which his well known critic would heartily 

 endorse, he nevertheless cannot well wholly evade the puzzles of 

 nomenclature and is obliged to admit that their correct solution 

 is a matter of considerable importance. In regard to the principal 

 point referred to by M. Le Jolis— the question of equivalence of 

 Porella and Madotkeca— the only inquiry that needs to be made 

 by one who follows the code adopted at Rochester in 1 892 by the 

 Botanical Club of the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science is whether the species to which these names were 

 originally applied are congeneric. That these species are thus 

 congeneric has, I think, been sufficiently demonstrated, and seems 

 not now to be contested even by M. Le Jolis. The French 

 savant's chief objections to the use of the name Porella are in ac- 

 cord with the sentiments of the Paris Code of 1867, which is ac- 

 cepted by the great majority of American systematic botanists of 

 to-day only with certain modifications. The practical application 



