352 



SCIENCE. 



LN. S. Vol. XVII. No. 426. 



citation of such consistent historical thor- 

 oughness that his oldest references generally 

 fail on the oldest and best known species of 

 each genus. The indications are that he did 

 not, but often gave citations to old books 

 under relatively little known species which 

 were not well represented in the writings of 

 his more immediate predecessors. 



If this should prove to be the case we would 

 save names as well as labor by beginning our 

 historical investigations with Tournefort, who 

 was generally careful to place the most com- 

 mon and best known species at the head of 

 his list. Moreover, such a limitation would 

 enable us to frame a rule of much more di- 

 rect and easy application, for instead of being 

 obliged to compare the chronology of the Lin- 

 nasan species of a genus we could simply look 

 for its type where the name first appeared in 

 Tournef ort's ' Institutiones ' or some later 

 work. If it were found that this species had 

 been included as a binomial in the ' Species 

 Plantarum,' or wherever the generic name 

 was first used by a binomial author, this would 

 constitute the adoption of the pre-Linnsean 

 genus, and its type species would have been 

 determined historically, but still in an entirely 

 definite and invariable manner. Such a rule 

 might read something as follows: 



A genus is treated as having heen adopted 

 from Tournefort or a later nonhinomial 

 writer when its type species was included 

 under the first iinomial use of the name. 



This rule would have the further distinct 

 advantage that generic names borrowed by 

 Linnaeus from older literature, but applied 

 to new groups of plants, would not be dis- 

 turbed, since their pre-Linnsan types would 

 not be found under the Linnsean use of the 

 name, which would then be treated as though 

 it had originated with Linnseus or any later 

 botanist. Generic names, like those of spe- 

 cies, would have a definite order of priority 

 under the binomial system of nomenclature. 

 All the real advantages of beginning generic 

 nomenclature with Tournefort would be se- 

 cured, without the folly of resurrecting the 

 many generic names which did not come into 

 use under the binomial system, but have 

 rested in oblivion for a century and a half. 



It has seemed desirable to call attention to 

 this alternative suggestion at the present time 

 because its merits can be most readily and 

 satisfactorily investigated while botanists are 

 testing the recently proposed rule to select 

 types of Linnaean genera on the basis of the 

 oldest reference. 0. F. Cook. 



Washington, 



February 3, 1903. 



A GRANT PROM THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR 

 PALEOBOTANY. 



The executive committee of the Carnegie 

 Institution has approved a grant of $1,500 to 

 G. E. Wieland, of the Yale University Mu- 

 seum, for the continuation during the year 

 1903 of his researches on the structure of the 

 living and fossil cycads. In connection with 

 this announcement the following brief state- 

 ment is appended concerning the extent and 

 progress of cycad investigation: 



The cycadaceous nature of certain silicified 

 stems with leaves and fruits unknown, from 

 the English Wealden, was recognized as early 

 as 1825. Nearly fifty years later Carruthers 

 studied a similar remarkably preserved trunk 

 from the Lower Greensand of the Isle of 

 Wight, in which he discovered between the 

 old leaf bases, which were thickly covered by 

 ramental hairs like those of ferns, wonder- 

 fully preserved and nearly mature ovulate 

 strobili of entirely different structure from 

 those of any cycads known. 



About this same time Williamson described 

 certain cycadean leaf imprints as found as- 

 sociated with trunks and various casts of 

 fruits of puzzling character from the cliffs 

 of Hawkser and Runswick on the south coast 

 of England. Nevertheless, these plants re- 

 mained one of the most interesting of all 

 paleobotanical riddles for the nest thirty 

 years, our knowledge of them being confined 

 to their trunk structure and the ovulate 

 strobilus, though it should be mentioned that 

 Capellini and Solms found pollen grains in 

 an imperfectly preserved fruit borne on a 

 trunk found at the ancient Etruscan ISTecrop- 

 olis of Marzabotto, thus showing that what- 

 ever the character of the male fructification, 

 it must have been borne laterally like the 

 seed-bearing cones. 



