208 PITTONIA. 
That group of papilionaceous plants—species of Astragalus 
according to Tournefort and Linnsus—on which De Can- 
dolle, as late as 1802, established the genus Oxytropis, had 
been much eariier indicated as distinct from Astragalus. The 
exactly typical Oxytropis, according to De Candolle, is the 
Astragalus montanus of Linnseus. Tournefort, both in 1694 
and in 1700, put it down as a quite dubious Astragalus, “As 
tragalus montanus of some authors, an Onobrychis according 
to others.”! As early as 1723 Michel Angelo Tilli placed this 
one species in the rank of a genus under the name Astraga- 
loides. Necker in 1790, associating other allied species with 
it, assigned the genus a new name, and one which was ad- 
missible under the Linnean code, which the Tillian oides 
name was not. Only twelve years after this, De Candolle 
comes out with a beautiful folio upon Astragalus and its allies, 
in which Tilli's and Necker's genus appears, as if it were an 
absolutely new one, and under the name of Oxytropis. De 
Candolle was excusable in passing by the untenable name 
imposed by Tilli; but as much cannot be said—indeed noth- 
ing can be said—in extenuation of his treatment of Necker, 
whom he passes by in silence. 
Dr. Otto Kuntze seems to have been first to attempt the 
doing justice to Necker in respect to the genus in question. 
In the Revisio Generum he writes up all the Oxytropis species 
under Necker’s Spiesia which he says is the equivalent of 
De Candolle’s genus of a twelve-years’ later date. And I, 
not having had occasion to use any of Kuntze's combina- 
tions under Spiesia, and not doubting the correctness of his 
statement that it is the same as Ozytropis, have been grati- 
fied, as an advocate of priority, to see that in several recent 
publications, Spiesia was being received instead of the later 
and presumedly synonymous Oxytropis. But, it having 
quite lately fallen in my way to renew long interrupted 
studies of Astragalus and its allies, I have examined Necker s 
pages relating to these plants, aud have found Dr. Kuntze 
DE LL T n cmi EMT 
! Tournef. Elemens, i. 329; Inst. i. 416. 
