274 



PITTONIA. 



retain tliem where tliey were wont to be kept; and their 

 preseijce where young botanists go, would remain a temptation 

 to some to "inflict a wrong on the botanical commonwealth 

 by ascertaining the genera of old authors'' ! Another phase 

 of the critic's assumptiveness comes out where he argues that 

 Znu/fua ought to stand in place of the prior name Obokiria 

 for this reason, among others, that the plant became the crebt 

 of Linn^us when lie was ennobled, and is now the badge of 

 the Linn^an Society of London. 



I must aJlnde, fiaallv, to the critic's strictures upon my 

 Laving " revived some of Eafinesque's forgotten or condemned 

 genera." I do not think I have ever proposed the reinstate- 

 ment of a "condemned" genus of Eafinesqiie, though I have 

 restored to quite a number of long accepted genera their only 

 valid designations, that is, the names imposed by him; names 

 belonging to him, but of which he was deprived, at first, by 

 the envy, the hatred or the malice of his contemporaries. 

 But since at Kew they now and then perform the same kindly 

 office, restoring the "forgotten or condemned genera" of 

 Salisbury or of S. F. Gray, to the displacement of substitutes 

 offered by Smith or GoodenougU or Beutham, I claim 

 immunity from their censure, at least in this. But when M^r. 

 Jackson observes that ''Jacksonia to supersede Polanisia 

 does not greatly matter, for Polanisia is now sunk in Cleome;' 

 he is assuming the prerogatives of either an individual or 

 insular absolutism. He seems to be saying that what they do 

 m London is done; and that all else that happens in the small 

 world botanical beyond shall count for nothing. "Folam'sia" 

 18 well known by many botauists to be as good a genus as can 

 be found in the family of plants to which it belongs.' I think 

 no American botanist of any note, since Rafinesque proposed 



2 



witti Lleome haa ever been indicated. In the former the valves of the 

 capsule are persistent and remain uinted to near the summit, their tips 

 tiien separating and becoming recnrved! In Cleome the valves are not 

 ouiy decdaous, but separate from their axis from below, the tip beiug 

 the last part to become detached. 



