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esque was reviewing when he proposed " Xolisnta," suggests a 

 name of such import. The corollas in the genus are both so 

 diminutive and so colorless compared with those of allied genera, 

 that the inflorescence looks more like a cluster of small unde- 

 veloped flower buds than a cluster of developed flowers. The 

 pedicels in kindred genera are bractcd ; in this, bractless. Again, 

 one member of each floral circle is commonly suppressed, so 

 that the flower is often tetramerous rather than pentamerous as in 

 related groups. The awns of the anther, otherwise almost uni- 

 versally characteristic of those of ericaceous shrubs, are wanting 

 in this genus ; and lastly the stigma, usually prominent enough 

 in such plants, is almost obsolete here. Without any doubt, 

 some or all of these six characteristic deficiencies that mark the 

 inflorescence and flowers of Nuttall's Lyonia, indicated to the 

 keen intellect of Rafinesque the name he gave as a substitute for 

 the Nuttallian homonym. 



My investigations leading to this apparent explanation began in 

 my knowledge of some of Rafinesque's own deficiencies as a writer. 

 I knew, for example, that his X's are ambiguous. He seems 

 never to have distinguished between the English X and the 

 Greek .V, which latter is Ch, pronounced like K. I do not 

 know how the readers of the new books, in which I am always 

 glad to see the name, pronounce it. But I know that Rafinesque 

 must have pronounced it Kolisma, and also that he ought to have 

 written \\. r\o\. Xolisniahxyt Cliolisvia ; and the latter is the way 

 that I should both write it and have it printed, if occasion came. 



Possibly there may be other " X " names by the same author, 

 in which that letter ought to have been represented by the Ch. 

 However, I do not recall any such at this moment, nor have I 

 time to examine indexes. But in scanning the pages of a theo- 

 logical brochure in which this same author displays more or less 

 learning, I lately encountered the words "Xrist" " Xristians "; 

 these illustrating the ambiguity of his X's elsewhere than in 

 names of genera. 



Enw. L. Greene. 



U. S. Nationai, Museum, Washington, D. C. 



