* 



Howe: Phvcological studies 579 



Coccocladus occidentalis Conqiicrantii M. A. Howe, Bull Torrey 

 Club 31 : 96. 1904. 



Coccocladus occidentalis laxxis M. A. Howe, /. c. 95. //. ^./. /, 2. 



Batophora Oerstedi occidentalis (Harv.) 



Dasycladas occidentalis Harv. Ner. Bon-Am. 3: 38. //. 41 B, 



1858. 



J 



1887. 



i 



Coccocladus occidentalis Cramer, Neue Denkschr. Schvvei2. Naturf. 

 Ges. 30: —(37)- 18S7. 



The discovery that Batophora Oerstedi was published by J. 

 Agardh four years previously to Harvey's Dasycladus occidentalism 

 and that it was apparently forgotten even by J. Agardh himself, is 

 a good illustration of the surprises which must now and then 

 await any one who is partial to the cause of priority in botanical 

 nomenclature. In 1854 J. Agardh published a very full descrip- 

 tion both of ''Batophora, J. Ag. mscr. Gen. nov, ex Siphonearum 

 familia inter Oliviam et Dasycladum intermedium" (/. c, loy) and 

 of its single species, Batophora Oerstedi, " Hab. ad radices Rhizo- 

 phorae Mangle in sinu substagnante * Krauses lagoon' dicto, ad 

 Insulam St. Crucis : Oersted/' In 1887, in publishing "Botry- 

 ophora J. Ag. mscr.,'' he alludes to his already having designated 

 the plant BotryopJiora Oerstedi in a collection of algae made by 

 Oersted, even before Harvey published Dasycladus occidentalism 

 but there is no reference to his having already actually printed a 



w 



description of the proposed new genus under a somewhat different 

 generic name and this fact appears to have been overlooked, so far 

 as we can discover, by all subsequent phycologists and bibliog- 

 raphers. If any evidence were needed that this omission on the 

 part of Agardh was due simply to a lapse of memory and not to 

 any intent to ignore, it would be furnished by his attitude toward 

 certain other species and names published in the same paper 



Possibly it maybe objected that *' Batophora" is a misprint 

 for the '' Botryophora " of thirty-three years later. To this it may 

 be replied that " Batophora " is well formed etymologically, is fully 



*E.g., Bryopds Duchassaingii]. Ag. Ofvers. Kongl. Vet.-Akad. Forh. ii : 107. 

 1854. — *' Hoc nusquam a me publici juris factum, jaradudum oblitum credidissem ** 

 (Till Alg. Syst. 5: 31. 1887). 



