NOTES ON OLD AND NEW GENERA OF PLANTS a5 
time of Linnaeus it was considered wrong to have animals and 
plants with identical names. ‘The later botanical codes have 
asserted independence from zoological nomenclature by accepting 
names already used for animals. None, however, dare go so far 
in encouraging confusion as to admit the same names in the 
different plant groups. Such breaches of a logical fundamental 
tenet have unwittingly been quite numerous The pardoning cir- 
cumstance if any has been that mycological nomenclature has not 
been as carefully classified as that of the higher plants. In en- 
quiring about Nummularia one would be perhaps nonplussed to 
ask whether the fungus or the primulaceous plant was meant. 
Mycologists have no right to take even temporarily rejected names 
of higher plants and apply them to such of their phyla. This 
practice arises perhaps from poverty of knowledge of classical 
languages or inability to make good names entirely new. If, 
however, a botanist considers a group of plants dignified enough 
to receive a generic caption he should, we take it, think the matter 
serious enough to endow it not only with a valid name, but with 
at least not a stupid one. Making a new genus by giving it a 
diminutive ending ella,ula or zola particularly when the first plant 
was named after some botanist is a ridiculous practice showing 
either ignorance or lack of seriousness on the part of the nomen- 
clator, either or both of which make the systematic botanists 
justly appear ridiculous to other men of science, nor will such a 
practice be tolerated by a more careful and discriminating future. 
The name Nummularia was used by the older botanists of 
the eighteenth century or earlier, and since 1753 for a plant 
segregated from the genus Lysimachia by S. F. Gray also, i. e., 
Lysimachia Nummularia Linn. To avoid confusion its use applied 
subsequently for a fungus is invalid. For the latter is suggested 
the name Kommamyce. 
Kommamyce, Nom. Nov. 
Nummularia Tul. 8 (1861-1865) not Nummularia S. F. Gray, 
mMatenr., Br. Poi tsoo (1821) Toulasne, L. Ro & C., Sel. Pung: 
II. (1861-1865). 
Among other species we have: 
Kommamyce Bulliardi (Tul). 
Nummularia Bulliardi Tul. 
Kommamyce lateritia (Ell. & Ev.). 
Nummularia lateritia Ell. & Ev. 
