By + 2sy/F 
“Unrecorded” genera of Rafinesque—l. Autikon Botanikon (1840) 
FRANCIS W. PENNELL 
Botanists have come to rely so fully on the thoroughness of the 
vast compliation of plant-names brought together in the Index 
Kewensis, that it is, to say the least, disconcerting to learn of 
names not recorded there. The libraries of England and the 
Continent fortunately, and naturally, contain the original descrip- 
tions of nearly all species ever published. Yet remarkable as was 
the diligence with which accessible volumes and journals were 
searched, it cannot be surprising to discover that some works, 
and particuliarly those produced elsewhere and but little welcomed 
in their time, were missed. Such were the works of Constantine 
Samuel Rafinesque, especially those written during the later lonely 
fruitful years of his life at Philadelphia. 
Rafinesque had a varied scientific career, for some years in 
Sicily, but for most of his working life in the United States, as it 
was understood between 1802 and 1840, the year of his death. 
None of the early students of the American flora made more 
prolific contributions to our taxonomic knowledge, and no other 
was so vigorously original. The present-day student must appre- 
ciate the keenness of Rafinesque’s judgments, no matter how 
much he may deplore the undisciplined enthusiasm with which 
were presented too slightly weighed conclusions, nor can we fail 
to do honor to the zeal which led this ‘“‘improver” to the produc- 
tion at his own expense, or rather at his own continuous loss, of 
volume after volume giving a sustained presentment of his views 
on the nomenclature, taxonomy and evolution of plants, American 
and foreign. 
Many of Rafinesque’s botanical papers between 1815, the 
date of his permanent settlement in America, and 1836 are short 
and published in little-known magazines. His more pretentious 
works of this period, Florula Ludoviciana, 1817, an ical 
Flora, 1828-30, are well indexed by the Kew bibliographers. But 
the papers in the American Monthly Magazine were not all seen by 
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