THE NEW ‘INDEX OF FLANT-NAMES.’ 69 
originated, or if barbarous, or even inappropriate. To take a 
notorious instance :—Robert Brown published a genus as Eleocharis, 
which Lestiboudois altered to Heleocharis, as more accordant with 
the Greek, an alteration adopted by many subsequent writers, who 
nevertheless employ Beauvois’s Oplismenus, which is equally faulty, 
without a sign of reprobation. 
Whilst on the topic of fixity of name, I would remark that our 
practice is to take the name under which any given plant is 
i a k 
to publish a new name by joining the oldest specific name to the 
true generic, is a mischievous practice which should never be 
condoned; it is adding to the already vast mass of useless synonyms, 
and is more likely to be the offspring of vanity than of a sincere 
desire to promote science. 
publication they are only a burden to our lists. Further, it may 
€ most unjust to the previous worker, who wrote a name possibly 
on the spur of the moment, and would not have published it on 
reflection. 
search I made in the principal early works in the period 
me 
quoted were incorrect, in so far as earlier authorities coul 
found. The plant which Linneus called Alsine media figures in 
books of the highest reputation variously as Stellaria media of Smith, 
Withering, and Villar, but Nyman quite correctly cites Cyrillo, 
who was the first to remove our plant from Alsine to Stellaria in a 
Scarce treatise. I have referred to the copy of this tract in th 
Banksian Library, and can verify the correctness of the citation ; 
it is the only species for which the tract has to be cited. 
oO 
reprint as later in date. But many ‘Societies and academies 
publish on such a wide field that botani ul libraries, even ~ the 
irst Importance, are u L E 
may have copies of every botanical treatise so pub 
