PITIONIA. 
A SERIES OF BOTANICAL PAPERS. 
By Edward Lee Greene. 
ECHINOCYSTIS 8 MEGARRHIZA. 
That this group of plants, known to most American botan- 
ists as species of Megarrhiza, constitute a genus distinct 
from Echinocystis is a doctrine which has been nowhere very 
seriously defended. Dr. Kellogg was the first to suggest for 
them generic rank, publishing early in the year 1854 his 
*Mara muricata. But only one year later he brought out a 
second species not as a Mara but as an Echinocystis. 
In the sixth volume of Pacific Railroad Reports, published 
in 1857, in a eatalogue of the plants of Williamson's Expedi- 
tion, the name Megarrhiza first appears in print; but no 
character is given, or any synonym or citation of a descrip- 
*Erroneously written Marah, by Dr. Kellogg who, as if writing an 
English name, follows the soit spelling of it given in the King 
James version of the Sacred Scriptures; and his mistake is copied by 
Watson and by Cogniaux. But the final aspirate in such Hebrew words 
is always omitted in Latin writing; and this not only because its pres- 
ence is an obstacle to the declension of a name; it does not, even in 
Hebrew, on any sound, and could safely be omitted in English as 
» well as 
Vou. I. Issued February 15, 1887. 
