Musineon of Rafinesque. 
JOHN M. COULTER AND J. N. ROSE. 
In studying some recent Mexican collections of Umbellifere 
we were led to an investigation of the genus commonly known 
as Musenium of Nuttall by the discovery of what seems to be 
a Mexican representative of it. The Nuttallian genus of 
1840 had been replaced by Rafinesque’s Adorium of 1825 in 
Kuntze’s Reviszo, and this name appears in the recent ‘Check 
list” published under the auspices of the Botanical Club. As 
the validity of this substitution must rest upon a thorough 
examination of Rafinesque’s writings, advantage was taken of 
the unusual facilities offered by the various libraries at Wash- 
ington to examine into the matter. The result is stated in 
the following history: cae 
In 1819, in Fournal de Physique, de Chimie et d’Histoire 
Naturelle (89: 101), Rafinesque established the genus Mar- 
athrum, basing it upon Seseli divaricatum Pursh. 
In 1820, in the same journal (91: 71), having discovered a 
previously described Marathrum Humb. & Bonp. (1808), he 
substituted Musineon for his Marathrum, and as this publica- 
tion seems to have escaped the notice of recent bibliograph- 
ers, Rafinesque’s statement is quoted in full as follows: 
1. Dans le prodrome de 50 nouveaux genres de plantes 
d’Amérique, j’ai décrit deux nouveaux genres sous les noms de 
marathrum et de pythagorea; je me suis apercu depuis lors, 
que ces noms avaient déja été employés, le premier par 
Robert Brown, et le second par Loureiro; et comme je suis 
convaincu de l’importance et de la nécessité d’éviter des 
doubles emplois en Botanique, je m’empresse de rectifier cette 
erreur, et de proposer les noms suivans en place. 
Mon G.* marathrum devra se nommer musineon. Ces deux 
noms sont des synonymes de fenouil. ; 
In 1825 Rafinesque suggested still another name, Adorzum, 
which was taken up by Dr. Otto Kuntze as the oldest tenable 
name, who states that the Musineon Raf., referred to in De- 
Candolle’s Prodromus (4: 146), must be an error. Dr. 
Kuntze certainly did not find it in the place cited in the 
R 
* With Rafinesque the abbreviation “‘G"’ stands for genus. 
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