CLASSIFICATION AND NOMENCLATURE. 5 I 



to the genus Acrostic hum. Ten years later Desvaux established 

 the genus Gymnogramma, based on this same West-Indian 

 species, and eleven others with a similar method of forming 

 their sori. Now under any rational system the name Gym- 

 nopteris must stand for that group of species which includes 

 the Pteris ruff a of Linnaeus, and it is equally true that it could 

 not be used legitimately for any other group of plants. To 

 illustrate how wide of the mark certain modern usage is, it is 

 only necessary to cite a recent revision of fern names * in which 

 Gvmnopterts is used for a wholly different group of ferns from 

 that which contains the plant Linnaeus called Pteris ruffa, and 

 for the group to which Pteris ruffa actually belongs a name is 

 selected that was not established until 1844, namely, Lepto- 

 g->-aitii/ie Link, thus passing over two earlier names which had 

 priority ! 



LITERATURE. 



The references to original writings would include all the 

 botanists who have named or classified ferns since the time of 

 Linnaeus (1707-1778). Among the more prominent of these we 

 may mention Swartz (1760-1818), Willdenow (1765-1812), Presl 

 (1791-1849), Mettenius (1823-1866), Hooker (1785-1865), Fee 

 (1789-1874), Milde (1824-1871), Al. Braun (1805-1875), and J. G. 

 Baker ( - ). The following work gives a good review 

 of the various systems : 



SMITH (John). Historia Filicum. London, 1875. (Mac- 

 millan & Co.) 



The American literature bearing on the subject is as follows : 



BECK (Lewis C). Synoptical tables of the Ferns and Mosses 

 of the United States. In Sillimari s Journal, iv (1829). 



DAVENPORT (George E.). Aspidium spinulosum (Swz.) and 

 its varieties. In American Naturalist, XII, 707-717 (1878). 



New species of Ferns. In Bulletin of the Torrey Bot. 



Club, vi, 190, 191 (1877) ; vii, 50, 51 (1880); vin, 61, 62 (1881); 

 x, 61,62 (1883). 



* Die naturlichen Pflanzenfamilien. (Engler-Prantl.) 



