OPEN LETTERS. 67 



banks of the Columbia, far beyond our borders acquired the 

 one which he named Q. Garryana, now recognized as also a 

 Californian oak. 



Thus it appears that Haenke's discoveries were grown old, 

 and had been almost forgotten when those of Douglas began; 

 and as late as 1844, Bentham republished Q. lobata, suppos- 

 ing it to be an unpublished oak, and assigned it the name Q, 

 Hindsii in compliment to an English botanist. Four years 

 after this, Dr. Torrey of Columbia College, then foremost 

 among American botanists, duplicated Bentham's error, pub- 

 lishing the same tree as new, and under the name Q, 

 longiglandis. His specimens, and some verbal information 

 about the tree, had been furnished by Fremont. 



OPEN LETTEES. 

 Professor Greene and Jacksonia and Folauisia. 



Notwithstanding the forceful appeal for the recognition of 

 JacTcsonia of Kafinesque as a genus, recently made in the 

 columns of this entirely reputable journal,^ I must still main- 

 tain my position that unless Cleome dodecandra^ L., on which 

 ihe name is founded, can be generically grouped with the 

 North American plants under discussion, the name must 

 remain in the category of synonyms. Michaux,^ who was 

 apparently the first botanist to allude to our species, erron- 

 neously identified it with the Indian Cleome dodccandra of 

 Linnaeus. Rafinesque, five years later,^ based Jackso7ita, 

 not on anything Michaux had written, so far as the context 

 shows, but distinctly and definitely upon the Indian plant. 



Now proof of the assumption that Eafinesque meant 

 exactly what he wrote is to be found in a paper by him, en- 

 titled ''Descriptions of Three New Genera of Plants from 

 the State of New York,"^ published in 1819, where he pro- 



1 Erythea, ii, 6-9. 



2 FL Bor. Am. ii, 32 (1803), 



3 Med. Kep. (II) v, 352 (1808). 

 Am. Journ. Sci. I, 337-339 (1819). 



