106 PITTONIA. 
genus-making of the centuries more certain than that with 
Necker Œrosıs was a monotype equivalent to Pteris lineata, 
Linn., and the Vittaria lineata of later botanists. But 
Necker's name antedates Viltaria by three vears. 
Among the older and more unquestioned species of this 
genus, the following may be enumerated: 
Œ. LINEATA. Phyllitis lineata, Petiver, Fil. 196. t. 14. f. 3 
(1712). Pteris lineata, Linn. sp. Pl. ii. 1073 (1753). Vittaria 
lineata, Swz. Syn. 109 (1806). 
Œ. FILIFORMIS. Vittaria filiformis, Swz. l. c. 
(E. ZOSTERÆFOLIA. Vittaria zosteræfolia, Willd. sp. v. 406 
(1810). 
Œ. rsoETIFOLIA. Vittaria isoëtifolia, Swz. 1. c. 
Œ. ELONGATA. Vittaria elongata, Swz. l. c. 
Œ. kNsrFORMIS. Vittaria ensiformis, Swz. l. c. 
There was, I think, no eighteenth-century botanist, unless 
it may have been Adanson, who equalled Necker in respect 
to the number of well-defined new genera which he based 
on old species as types. His whole wòrk, in the Elementa, 
was that of undoing Linneus’ artificial groups, miscalled 
genera, and indicating natural ones in their stead. I recall 
no instance in which he proposed a new genus based on a 
new species. 
Let us observe after what manner hedismembersthe rather 
large Linnæan genus Asplenium. His segregates of it are 
two only; and the first he names Onopteris, giving, over and 
above the generic character, the statement that the Lin- 
næan Asplenia with compound fronds represent it; and if 
one must demand of him, unreasonably, that he name a 
type-species, has he not done so in the very fact of his 
