66 ; MIDLAND NATURALIST. 
in 1729. Adanson restored Micheli’s name to the group in 1763, 
Linnaeus having either disregarded them or put them under 
another genus aggregate name. It is to be remembered that 
that Clathroidastrum as a name is objectionable from the Linnaean 
rules of nomenclature, but very little regard is had for the rules 
Linnaeus laid down, however reasonable they are.. The name was 
formed from Clathroides, which in turn was patched up from 
Clathrus, the latter being the name of a genus of fungi. Linnaeus 
rightly suppressed all such names, but modern systematists not only 
accept them but have even created such. They are then hardly in 
a position to reject such a name as even Clathroidastrum for 
etymological reasons. As a matter of fact, the Linnaean rules of 
nomenclature are not only at present not followed, they are 
positively ignored. The name must be either Stemonitis, Gleditsch, 
1753, or Clathroidastrum, Adanson, 1763, for those that go back no 
farther than Linnaeus for plant names, but Stemonitis, (Gled.) 
Rostafinski, 1873, is antedated. The name Stemonitis, as given by 
Ludwig Böhmer, in the Third edition of Ludwig’s Definitiones 
Plantarum of 1760, is an impossible aggregate, containing the 
genera Stemonitis proper, Comatricha, Buxbaumia, one of the 
mosses, and Clathrus, Sphaerocephalus, Eubolus, several genera of 
fungi. Such a conglomeration of totally different plants under 
Stemenitis, cannot be accepted under that name by any reasonable 
scientific method of modern classification. If the month of the 
publication of Gleditsch’s work is not given, as seems to be the case, 
then there still remains the doubt whether it was even as aggregate 
of both Stemonitis proper and Comatricha, published before May 9, 
of the year 1753, or whether after that date. Until this matter of 
doubt be cleared up we provisionally indicate that specific names of 
the genus now under Stemonitis, (Gleditsch) Rost. 1873, be referred 
to the older name, Clathroidastrum, Adanson, 1763. For those 
that do not take the year 1753 as the “starting point’’ for botanical 
nomenclature, the name-Clathroidastrum, Micheli, 1729, seems to 
be the correct name, and as we shall try to show, is the oldest name 
for the genus under its modern limitations, i. e. separate from 
—A Comatricha. 
As to the valid publication of the name by Adanson there can be 
as little doubt as for the publication of Mucilago, Adanson, now 
generally accepted without question. Though Adanson’s descrip- 
tions are generally brief, and may be suspected of incompleteness, 
t 
