NEGLECTED GENERIC TYPES. 207 
genera already named. The pods are approximately those 
of some Drabas or of certain other siliculose genera. And 
on the whole, no longer content to call this thing a Draba, 
I propose to designate it as 
" ABDRA BRACHYCARPA. Draba brachycarpa, Nutt. in Torr. 
& Gray, Fl. i, 108. 
NEGLECTED GENERIC TypEs.—II. 
HALERPESTES. 
The North American specific type, the study of which has 
brought me to the point of proposing a new genus under 
the name given above, is Pursh's Ranunculus Cymbalaria. 
The relation which the plants sustain to Ranunculus may 
well be compared to that subsisting between Fragaria aud 
Potentilla. In Halerpestes and Fragaria the plants are what 
we call stemless, and propagation is secured by a system of 
long articulated runners which ultimately strike root and 
produce a new plant at each joint. The only fruit charac- 
ters by which the group is distinguishable from Ranunculus 
are those of the thin texture and the striated surface of the 
achenes. 
The type has, by several authors, been seen to be too 
strongly divergent from true Ranunculus to be retained 
within that genus; but the attempts to place it elsewhere 
seem to me to have been most irrational. The proposal to 
place it under Oxygraphis must surely have been made in 
great innocence of the real characteristics of that genus. 
Oxygraphis bears not the least resemblance to these plants. 
Its whole aspect is that of Caltha, from which its persistent 
sepals and one-seeded carpels distinguish it. And if the 
attempt to place it under Cyrtorhyncha is less objectionable 
8856—4 
