﻿Underwood : The ternate Species of Botryciiium 523 



teris for 0. regalis, and its two allies, and left 0. Lunaria and 0. vir- 

 giniaiia to stand for the genus Osmunda. It will thus be seen that 

 it was a mere accident of priority of place in publication that pre- 

 vented the species of Botrychium from bearing the name Osmunda, 

 for mere deference to Swartz who was better known than Bern 

 hardi, evidently led the editor to give precedence to Swartz' paper 

 in the issue of his journal. 



In 1806 Swartz,* after placing 0. cervina in Acrosticlium, 0. 

 Struthioptcris in Onoclea, 0. Spicant (with another uncalled-for 

 specific name ) under Blechnum } and 0. crispa under Pteris, cut 

 off another genus from the Linnaean Osmunda, namely Anemia^ 



* 



with seventeen species of which 0. phyllitidis L. is first named, 

 with 0. hirta, 0. hirsuta, 0. adici7itifolia } 0. bipi)inata, 0. vcrticil- 



of Cavanilles, 



^_ «r 



lata and 0. filicidaefolia 



four of Lamarck and one by Swartz himself. 



The varied practice of botanists with regard to fixing the group 

 with which the Linnaean 

 by this comparatively simple case. It will show the absurdity of 

 using some of the methods employed by modern botanists and 

 serve to point out a line of nomenclatorial investigation that de- 

 - serves consideration, since there has been neither uniformity in 

 "practice nor a definite ruling,! but which is more vital to stability 

 than many of the problems that have reached essential uniformity 

 in practice. The various methods hitherto employed for fixing the 

 Linnaean generic name to a group of plants from which successive 

 •genera have been taken off are as follows : 



I. The generic name must rise or fall with the first species 

 •described under the genus. In the case in hand this method 

 would result in fixing the name Osmunda for the genus we now 



know as Helminthostachys % since Osmunda zeylandica was the 

 first Linnaean species named. This plan is not commonly followed 

 except in the case of genera that were monotypic with Linnaeus, 



^Synopsis Filicum. 1806. 

 f This name has been variously corrupted in orthography but this is the original 



orm 



The Paris Code, Art. 54, leaves this point 

 The name Helminthostachys was applied tc 



