190 
plate of what he regarded to be Linnaeus's Dolichos unguiculatus. 
It is not apparent how Jacquin was misled, but the plant he 
figured is the catjang (Vigna catjang), very often regarded as a 
variety of the cowpea (Vigna sinensis). 
In 1842, Walpers, Rep. 1: 779, transferred Linnaeus’s species 
to Vigna as Vigna unguiculata, with little doubt basing his idea 
of its identity on the colored plate of Jacquin, though in the 
meantime the пате of Linnaeus had been already taken up by 
some authors as the oldest name of the cowpea, for example by 
Guillemin, Perrotet and Richard, Flora Senegamb. Tent. 1830-33. 
In many floras Vigna unguiculata is quoted as a synonym of 
Vigna. sinensis (in a broad sense), and I have been able to find 
no single instance where it has been otherwise employed. 
It was a matter of some surprise, therefore, upon examining 
Linnaeus's original specimen preserved in the Herbarium of the 
Linnaean Society, London, to find that it is not the cowpea at all, 
nor indeed a very close relative. It is in fact the plant recently 
described by Urban as Phaseolus antillanus (Symb. Ant. 4: 309). 
As the species seems properly referable to Phaseolus it will have 
to bear the name Phaseolus unguiculatus (L.. The following 
collections represent Phaseolus unguiculatus: Cuba, Wright, No. 
1594, "in Cuba orientale," Sept. 1859-Јап. 1860; Porto Rico, 
P. Sintenis, No. 2938, Dec. 2, 1885; St. Vincent, H. H. & G. W. 
Smith, No. 1181, March, 1890. 
C. V. PIPER 
CURRENT LITERATURE 
А SuPPosED FossIL FERN BECOMES A PINE TREE.—In a recent 
number of the Annals of Botany (25: 903-907. О. 1911) Dr. 
Marie C. Stopes has printed an interesting paper under the title: 
"On the True Nature of the Cretaceous Plant Ophioglossum 
granulatum Heer." In this paper Doctor Stopes has conclusively 
shown that the American specimens of this species, which 
was named and described originally by Heer from the Patoot 
ebeds of Greenland, and later identified by Newberry in the 
