STUDIES IN THE CRUCIFER.JE. 205 
it is the type which he specifically discusses in his argu- 
ment for the segregation of all these plants from the genus 
Alyssum. His argument is this: Alsine and Spergula are 
distinguished as genera by the bifid petals of the former 
and the entire ones of the latter. Therefore, he says, Par- 
onychia vulgaris (i. e., Draba verna) should be excluded 
from Alyssum. 
The fact that Erophila verna is the type of Dillenio-Lin- 
nean Draba—and the fact is simply incontrovertible—may 
interest such of our botanists as would like to accept the 
plant in the rank of a genus, but who shrink from adopt- 
ing it under Adanson’s ridiculous appellation of Gans- 
blum; though there is no need of heeding that appellation 
since it is in violation of a higher law than that of priority, 
the law that botanical nomenclature must be Latin, at least 
in form. 
" 4. A Proposed New Genus ABDRA. 
This is a segregate from that, as it always seems to me, 
forced and empirical consociation of natural incoherents 
which passes with most people for a genus called Draba. 
It is apparently a monotype, and is known as Draba brachy- 
carpa, Nutt.; a small annual, of rather wide dissemination 
southwestward and northwestward in the United States. It 
wears an aspect thoroughly unlike that of any other so- 
called Draba, more resembling, superficially at least, some 
possible Capsella, or Thlaspi, or Hutchinsia; and there is 
nothing but the form of its pods to suggest an alliance with 
the Draba aggregate, while from no section of the conven- 
tional Draba is it farther removed in its real nature than 
from that typified by D. Caroliniana with which authors 
have, I believe, invariably associated it in their books. 
Sir William Hooker, by the way, who was one of the first 
