634 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



of a generic character the authors of the " Check List " 

 would make for Phaca. 



Astragalus angustus. 



Ash-agahis pieties Gray, var. angustus Jones, Zoe, 4, 



37. 



Mr. Sheldon, in making a new name for the type species, 



refers my var. angustus to it under the name of var. 

 Jonesii without previously consulting me as to the de- 

 sirability my accepting the high honor of having a 

 variety dedicated to me which in the very nature of the 

 case could never be more than a synonym. Mr. Sheldon 

 makes the name to supplant angustus, because, as he as- 

 sumes, it was used previously by Boissier, but Boissier 

 never made the name Ast?'agalus angustus, as far as I 

 know. In his second attempt at correcting names, Mr. 

 Sheldon, departing from his uniform rule of giving speci- 

 fic names to varieties and mere forms, reduces (without 

 having seen my type) my var. to a synonym of the var. 

 folioJosus Gray, raising that form to a species, stating that 

 its synonyms are '■'•A.pictusN'AX. angustatus ^ones, not^. 

 angustatus Boissier, A. ceramicus var. Jonesii Sheldon." 

 Now, I never published any Astragalus angustatus, and it 

 appears that Boissier never published an Astragalus an- 

 gustus. Hence the resulting batch of synonyms is wholly 

 useless. Curiously enough, Astragalus -pietus var. an- 

 gustus differs from the type and from the vars. foliolosus 

 and jilifolius more than they do from each other, and 

 under the methods so common in closet botanizing would 

 be called a good species. 



The same method of making useless synonyms was 

 employed in renaming Astragalus strigosus Coulter & 

 Fisher (A. griseopuhens Sheldon), Mr. Sheldon being 

 wholly unaware that that name is a synonym for Astra- 

 galus serotinus Gray. 



