188 PITTONIA. 



alterations in our nomenclature. Those wliicli are called for 

 under the present lieadiug are better made pari passu; 

 thus the duration of the inevitable period of change will be 

 shortened. The bulk of these unfortunate names have been 

 derived, as above intimated, from the names of emiueut 

 individaals. There is every temptation to try to keep these 

 in use ; therefore they are the most frequently repeated, and 

 become the most troublesome of all. Those not accustomed to 

 tliese things may be surprised at the number of different uses 

 which have been made of Bujelovia, Torreya^ Nidiallia, etc. 

 It is my purpose for the future to reject every name of this 

 kind, except as connected with the first type to which it was 

 applied ; thus allowing to no genus with wdiich I may have 

 to deal, a revertible name— one which may by any possibility 

 be claimed for an earlier genus. The following are but a 

 few out of many changes which this rule will demand. 



XYLOTHEKMIA, 



Pickerimjia, Nutt. in Torr. & Gray, Fl. i. 388 (1840), not 



of Journ. Philad. Acad. vii'. 95 (1834). 



Mj 



first published by liim as a new species of Cijrilla. After 

 liaviug proposed it as a new genus, it was remanded by him. 

 to the genus Ardisia. But, as the type of a genus, Pick- 

 erliKjia, it had the approval of a botanist as eminent as tbe 

 elder De Caudolle ; while the second great botanist of that 

 name, in referring it to Ardisia, made of it a subgenus 

 Pickeringia. And even Bentham, at a much later date, and 

 after the shrub had become much better known, pays some 

 deference to the rank allowed it by A. De Candolle. It would 

 not be at all surprising if the next monographer of Ardisia 

 and its allies should restore it to generic rank, in which case 

 it could take no other name but Pickeringia. The Cali- 

 fornian shrub, belonging to the Leguminos*, I shall call 

 XiLOTHERMiA MONTANA. Pickeringia montana, Nutt.; 



Torr. & Gray, 1. c. • 



