138 CONTRIBUTIONS TO WESTERN BOTANY 
in keeping up on trivial grounds various genera that never had any 
standing. The author probably never had much field experience, but 
bases the work on herbarium material. A very small amount of field 
work would show her the absolute untenability of many genera, if she 
has any generic sense of proportion. Her sense of specific limitations is 
also weak, since she keeps up as species many varieties that any field 
botanist would recognize at once. 
Since there has been such widespread opposition to Rose’s treat- 
ment of the Umbelliferae, one expects a philosophical discussion of the 
basis of every genus; but Miss Mathias seems too timid to attempt it. I 
pes. It is quite a different thing, more like Cogswellia. C. longipes is a 
peculiar species, growing flat on the ground in early spring with a rosette 
of leaves and sessile inflorescence. As it matures the foot elongates and 
the pedicle also so that the flowers or fruit are a foot above ground. The 
root is tuberous and fleshy, while that of Lapidosus is quite different. 
So is the habit of the two. I notice a similar absence of critical judg- 
should be suppressed. Cases in point are Astragalus grallator Watson, 
Astragalus oocalycis Jones, and Astragalus hyalinus Jones. There is 
much duplication of forms in the Umbelliferi because of the varying de- 
velopment of wings according to the time of fruiting of certain species. 
It should be easy to give a good description of a well established species, 
and this description should be based not on the characters shown by the 
type specimen so much as on the plant as it is known to grow. 
Our nomenclature practices are at fault in many cases in the matter 
of priority. It is the practice to recognize the first name applied to a 
species, and if variations of it are found later on, those go as varieties of 
the earlier species. But this practice is biologically wrong, for the reason 
that often the first name applied to a species was given not to the plant 
as it grows but to a variation, good enough as a variety, but not preva- 
lent enough to warrant using the specific name for it. An example of 
