6i4 NATURAL SCIENCE. oct., 



and, although I cannot follow them entirely, it is certain that many of 

 his names must be restored. The genus Echinocystis, founded by 

 Torrey and Gray in 1840, upon Momovdica echinata, Muhl., was antici- 

 pated hy Micvampelis, published by Rafinesquein 1808, with a diagnosis 

 and an indication that it was based on the same species ; and many 

 other examples might easily be cited. 



It cannot be too much regretted that the great opportunity for 

 establishing an enumeration of genera which would have complied 

 with the requirements of the law of priority should have been 

 neglected. The publication of Bentham and Hooker's Geneva 

 Plantanim afforded this opportunity, but the learned authors, although 

 in many instances aware that there was an earlier name than that 

 which they adopted, deliberately placed this as a synonym. Had the 

 contrary course been adopted, it is hardly too much to say that, so 

 far as genera are concerned, our nomenclature would, by this time, 

 have been established upon a solid basis. Instead of this, however, 

 the illustrious sanction thus given to the retention of names 

 admittedly not the oldest, and the adoption of a similar limitation 

 and naming of genera by so many subsequent authors, has placed 

 these names in a position of false avithority. It is true that, more and 

 more, these false names are being set aside by individuals, but in the 

 Genera Plantarmn the whole work might have been done once for all. 

 The various portions of Colonial Floras which issue from Kew 

 have, for the most part, followed the Geneva in nomenclature ; and, 

 worst of all, Mr. B. D. Jackson's great Index, which is making satis- 

 factory progress, follows the same lines, although the dating of each 

 name makes it plain which should be retained. It is scarcely an 

 exaggeration to say that many thousands of names which stand in 

 the Index will have no existence, save as synonyms, so soon as any 

 monographer takes the trouble to restore the right names of the 

 genera ; and for this unnecessary distention of our already over- 

 crowded list the authors of the Geneva must be held responsible. 



It is right to say that this ignoring of the oldest names was 

 justified by Mr. Bentham, and has lately found a defender in Mr. 

 W. B. Hemsley, of the Kew Herbarium. According to the former, 

 " names which have been long and universally adopted must be con- 

 sidered as having acqviired a right of prescription to overrule the 

 strict laws of priority. It would, indeed, be mere pedantry, highly 

 inconvenient to botanists, and so far detrimental to science, now to 

 substitute . . . Fibichia for Cynodon ... or Singlingia [Sieglmgia] for 

 Triodia."^ It is satisfactory to know that, in spite of this ex cathedra 

 pronouncement, and of the weight deservedly attaching to Mr. 

 Bentham's utterances, these two names, as I have pointed out else- 

 where, 5 have been adopted in the last two issues of the London 

 Catalogue, and Sieglingia appears in two English local floras. 



^ " Notes on GramineaL>," Journ. Linn. i}OC., vul. xix., p. 19, 18S2. 

 " Journal of Botany, 1S92, p. 54. 



