Polycodium 
C. B. RoBINSON 
The statements by which Professor E. L. Greene* suggested 
the resuscitation of Rafinesque’s name require quotation in full, 
as they bring up many points open to controversy. 
“We have in the Eastern and Southern United States two 
groups of vacciniaceous shrubs either of which is at variance with 
all genuine Vaccinium in two important points of floral structure. 
The corollas in both groups are campanulate, while in both 
Vaccinium and Gaylussacia they are urceolate. The stamens also, 
in these campanulate-flowered shrubs, are of a structure so 
peculiar that, on the characters of this organ alone, a genus might 
reasonably be established, were concomitant characters wanting. 
Vaccinium and Gaylussacia are now everywhere admitted as 
distinct, yet, exclusive of the groups here under special notice, 
there is not the slightest difference of floral structure between the 
two. But these other shrubs depart widely from the characters of 
both Vaccinium and Gaylussacia not only in their open-campanu- 
late corollas, but in respect to their stamens, which organs are 
doubly marked by extremely long and slender anther-tubes, and 
two prominent horn-like projections on the back; so that nothing 
approaching these characters is found in any other genera allied 
to Vaccinium. 
“Twice in the early part of the century, botanists of first-class 
ability proposed the separation of these species from Vaccinium. 
afinesque in 1818, not distinguishing generic differences between 
those types represented by V. stamineum and V. arboreum respec- 
tively—perhaps not even knowing V. arboreum—proposed the V. 
Stamineum group for a genus under the beautifully appropriate 
name of Potycopium; and Nuttall in 1843, ignoring Rafinesque’s 
earlier proposition—just as later pretenders to taxonomic autoc- 
Tacy suppressed Nuttall’s work—sought to establish a new genus 
todendron with V. arboreum as typical, and Picrococcus with V. 
Siamineum for its type : 
“The characters of the two genera are well indicated by 
Nuttall, in the transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 
with the exception of one new and most significant peculiarity of 
the V. stamineum group which I alone seem to have observed. 
“od eembitsider:: ee 
* Pittonia 3: 323. 1898. 
549 
