934 : PITTONIA. 
species by name, as to have published some new types in the 
rank and character of monotypical genera, leaving the plants 
entirely destitute of any other than generic names. In this 
they were perhaps unconscious of having renewed a practice 
which was common with pre-Linnæan authors. For a single 
example of this I may cite Chionopappus? which, published 
as a genus now several years since, may, in so far as we know, 
await a specifie name at the hands of Mr. Jackson, at some 
time still in the future. But it would be erroneous to say 
that “Benth. & Hook. f.” are not to be cited as authors of 
specific names in any case; for in their work some species 
have been named by them very explicitly. One out of many 
such instances will be found on page 249 of the second 
volume, where, in transferring Gutierrezia gymnospermoides 
to Xanthocephalum, they have incidentally printed what will 
be its new name, in their clause which ends with “in X. gym- 
nospermoide." Cases like that one must not ignore; for it 
is an explicit re-naming of the plant. Some one of our con- 
temporaries has lately remarked, with great pertinency, upon 
the folly of conceding names by implication, to authors who, 
like Bentham, did not admit the obligation of retaining old 
specific names under new genera. It is most plain that 
he who writes, for example, * Potentilla Gordoni, Benth. & 
Hook.", upon no other warrant than that those authors have 
pronounced the genus Ivesia to be but a group of Potentilla 
species, is declaring that they were bound to adopt the 
specifie name Gordoni in case they had named the several 
species under Potentilla ; so if Dr. Watson had written noth- 
ing botanical except his valuable Index, we should feel certain 
that he held the doctrine of the necessary permanency of the 
specific name. Under Horkelia and Ivesia he has done up 
nicely the synonymy, and has made Bentham and Hooker the 
authors of such synonyms as they would have made under 
that law of permanency which all the world knows they do 
1 See page 189 preceding. 
? Benth. & Hook. f. ii. 485. 
