414 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [November 



makiner 



variability and range of the plant in hand, is so grave a matter 



from 



upon a single collection may well be questioned. No doubt there 



affirmative 



manifestly im 



sirable. 



amateurs 



made 



It would defer publication of even the best of species, often indefi- 

 nitely, and that is to kill interest and delay development. There 

 would be little incentive to make collections were it understood 

 that some one in the next generation would make report upon all 

 except the well known things. That it is desirable to avoid the 



ms cannot be too stronsrlv em 



synonyms 



Ne\ 



NUTTALL 



renewed caution in the best of us and deep penitence in the worst 

 of us. Those who lament (and that includes the " chief est sinners") 

 are prone to think that great facility (perhaps agility) in making 

 synonyms is peculiar to the present generation. Let us see how 

 these examples (scores of others, just as illuminating might be 

 found) bear out that idea. 



Douglas collected two plants in the region of the Columbia 

 which were described in Hooker's Flora (2:20. 1834) as Diplo- 

 pappus Jilifolius and D. linearis. The first of these 

 ferred, and it became Erigeron Jilifolius (Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. 

 7*328. 1841), although he probably did not himself know the plant, 

 since the canescent paniculately branched stems and the yellow 

 flowers mentioned by him do not belong together. In the mean- 

 time DeCandolle had based another name upon the same Doug- 

 lasian collection, viz. Chrysopsis canescens (Prodr. 5 : 3 28 - l8 3 6 )> 

 and in spite of the fact that he speaks of the flowers as yellow, the 

 chances are that this name refers to Diplo pappus linearis, at least 

 in part, just as Nuttall's name does. In the Torre y and Gray 

 Flora (2:177. 1842) this difficulty is not cleared up, but the true 

 facts are suggested, in part, while they are also obscured by the 

 retention of Nuttall's E. ochroleucum (loc. cit.), to which Hooker s 



