376 RypBERG: Nores on ROSACEAE 
type of Quinquefolium Tourn. the type of Potentilla LL. The plant 
figured by Tournefort is Potentilla reptans L. Tournefort had 
adopted the name Quinquefolium from Caspar Bauhin.* The 
latter referred directly to the Pentaphyllon (revraduddov) of Dios- 
corides and Theophrastus and Pliny’s Quinguefolium, all evidently 
the official plant Potentilla reptans. The plate in Dioscorides 
(Codex Vindobonensis, of which there is a photographic fac- 
simile copy in the library of the New York Botanical Garden) 
may very well represent P. reptans, or at least a species of Poten- 
tilla with digitately 5-foliolate leaves, 5 petals, and decumbent 
stem, rooting at the nodes, 
A few botanists are inclined to regard the first species men- 
tioned as the type of the genus. The first species of Potentilla 
is P. fruticosa L., but this was not a part of Tournefort’s Quin- 
quefolium. The first Tournefortian species of that genus, cited 
by Linnaeus, is P. recta, and the first Linnaean species given in 
Tournefort’s Institutiones, is P. alba; but neither of these agrees 
with Tournefort’s plate, nor can they be traced back to the old 
Greek and Latin writers, from whom Tournefort adopted the name 
Quinquefolium. There is therefore no species which can dispute 
the right of P. reptans as being regarded as the type of Potentilla, 
except P. Anserina, and the latter can do so only if we admit a 
pre-Linnaean starting point of our nomenclature. 
The type of Tormentilla L.t is T. erecta L., or Potentilla Tor- 
mentilla, a 4-merous species of the same group as P. reptans. 
The type of Quinquefolia (Tourn.) Adans.t and of Pentaphyl- 
lum Gaertn.,§ is of course also P. reptans. The proposing of 
another genus Callionia Greene|| was, of course, altogether super- 
fluous, for its type, Potentilla canadensis L., is so closely related 
to P. reptans that no scientist would seriously think of placing 
them in different genera. In proposing Callionia, the author 
says: “If Argentina be separated from Potentilla, it is by habit 
and inflorescence alone and from this there seems to follow neces- 
sarily the conceding of equal rank to what I shall call Callionia.”’ 
*Pinax 325. 
fSp- Fl. s00.:2 2755: i 
¢Fruct. 1: 349. 1788. 
\\Leaflets 1: 238. 1906. 
