ET. 77.] TO DR. BRITTON. 813 
Sunday Evening, November 27, 1887. 
Dear Dr. Brrrron, — I wish to eall your attention 
either in a personal way or in the * Bulletin,” if pre- 
ferred, to a name coined by you on the 223d page of 
this year’s “ Bulletin.” 
“ Conioselinum bipinnatum (Walter, Fl. Car. under 
Apium), Britton, Selinum Canadense, Michx., 1803.” 
I want to liberate my mind by insisting that the 
process adopted violates the rules of pomenelatare by 
giving a superfluous name to a plant, and also that in 
all reasonable probability your name is an incorrect 
one. 
Take the second point first. On glancing at the 
“Flora of North America,” of Torrey and Gray, 1, 
619, where the name Conioselinum Canadense legiti- 
mately came in, you will notice that the name Apium 
bipinnatum, Walt., is not cited as a synonym; also 
that the synonymous name of Cnidium Canadense, 
Spreng., is cited with “excl. Syn.” This Apium bi- 
pinnatum, Walt., you might gather was one referred 
to. Sufficient reason for the exclusion by Dr. Torrey 
might have been that Michaux’s plant is a cold north- 
ern one, which nobody would expect in or near Wal- 
ter’s sround — the low and low middle part of Carolina. 
Besides, the preface of that “Flora” states that 
Walter’s herbarium had meanwhile been inspected by 
Dr. Torrey’s colleague, who may now add that the 
Apium bipinnatum is not there. So that the name 
you adopt rests wholly upon a mere guess of Spren- 
gel’s, copied by De Candolle, dropped on good grounds 
by Torrey, but inadvertently reproduced in Watson’s 
“ Index,” copying De Candolle. I suppose you would 
not contend that a wholly unauthenticated and dubi- 
ous (I might say, doubtless mistaken) name, under 
