\ 
354 COKRESPONDENCE. 
and probably never thinking any more about the Palms. The next 
morning, much to the annoyance of every one, one of these rare plants 
had disappeared, and everybody had his own opinion about its dis- 
appearance. The authorities of the garden never could find out ; but 
Mr. Wendland, for his own satisfaction, succeeded in discovering that 
it was stolen by an Irishman employed at Kew, who sold it, it is 
said, for a few shillings. The plant went thence to the Continent, 
and there fetched £5 ; ultimately coming into the hands of Mr. Borsig, 
of Berlin, who, it is said, had to give at least four times that sum for 
it. Prof. Karl Koch, ignorant of the whole transaction, and taking the 
Palra, from its habit, to be an Astroca7ytim^ named it in 1859 A, 
Borsigianum, It was shortly after Mr, Wendland had succeeded in 
tracing out the case, that he gave to the new genus, of which he had ob- 
tained herbarium specimens, the name of TlioBulcopliorura Secliellarum^ 
afterwards published in a scientific fonn. Mr. Duncan, curator of the 
Botanic Gardens of Mauritius, after this gave, in compliment to 
Governor Stevenson, of Mauritius, the MSS. name of Steve^isonia 
to both this species and a plant {VerscTiaffeltia) somewhat resembling 
it, but differing generically. Duncan's name, not being published nor 
accompanied by any scientific description, must of course fall to the 
ground, and Phoenico2)horum be upheld. In Duncan's ' Catalogue of 
Plants in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Mauritius,' fob, Port Louis, 
Mauritius, 1863, p. 87, we find only this entry, '' Stevensonia grandi- 
/ 
A. \i. e. one of the plants 
introduced since Mr. Duncan took charge of the garden]." Grandifli 
is doubtless a misprint, the plant more frequently going under -S'. 
grandifoUa, This is simply the history of the generic name of the 
plant (excellently figured and described in Van Houtte's PL des Serres, 
t. 1595-1596). It might perhaps have been desirable to adopt a dif- 
ferent nomenclature, but after a name has once been given, nobody can 
possibly revoke it, not even the author himself if he were thus inclined. 
The law of priority does not admit of exceptions. 
COREESPONDENCE. 
JEjpacris impressa, flore pleno. 
I have examined the double JEpacHs impressa at Kew. It is doubled in the 
same way as the large Batara arborea, L e, by tlie repetition of the corolla 
