Notes on Rosaceae 



Per Axel Rydberg 



ScHIZONOTUS 



■ 



In Harms' list of Genera Conservanda, adopted by the Vienna 

 Botanical Congress, the name Sorbaria A. Br. of r 864 is given among 

 those which should be retained, and it is preferred to the older 

 Basilima Raf. 1836 [should have been 1838] and the still older 

 Schizonotus Lindl of 1829. Usually the publication of the last- 

 named genus is accredited to VVallich's Catalogue.* This cata- 

 logue, however, was not published in the sense the word '' pub- 

 lished" is usually taken, for it was merely a duplicated collector's 

 list. Besides, ScJiizonotits is there merely a nomen nudum^ t. ^., 



being accompanied neither by a description nor by a synonym 

 cited. In Lindley's Introduction to the Natural System of 1830, 



Schizonotus is really published, as Lindley points out the charac- 



Spiraea sorbifoli 



Schizo- 



notus on page 81, and on page ?*i enumerates Schizonotus as a 



genus recognized by him. 



'bifolius 



was not actually published until eleven years later in the second 

 edition of Steudel's Nomenclator. 



Is there any good reason for preserving Sorbaria instead of 

 either of the two older names ? If there had been a rule providing 

 that when a subgenus, or section of a genus, is raised to generic 

 rank, then the subgeneric or sectional name should be retained, 

 Sorbaria A. Br. would have had a standing, for as a name of a sec- 

 tion of Spiraea it dates from 1825. Such a rule has been advo- 

 cated to some extent in this country, but the Vienna Rules do not 

 provide for anything like it. Sorbaria apparently was selected 

 purely arbitrarily, perhaps because it had been adopted by Focke 

 in Die Natvirlichen Pflanzenfamilien. \i Sorbaiia had been a gen- 



erally accepted genus, there might have been also some reason for 

 its retention, but this is not the case. Scarcely any one has used 



No. 703. 1829. 



397 



