14 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
panies this figure. It is only by a misconstruction of the word 
” by which Schrank defines the form of the leaves, 
to apply the specific name of divaricatus to the plant known in all 
English floras as Rf. sireneats Sibth. (1794). Even Mr. G. C 
Druce follows the continental lead in his Fl. Berkshire, p. 8, where 
he says :—‘ In adopting the commie name divaricatus (for Sib- 
rene s species], which was proposed for the plant in 1789, and 
which has been adopted by Ascherson (Fl. Prdndenbuny): Grenier 
and Godron (Fl. de France), Koch (Syn. Fl. Germ.), and many 
fe 
Fl, de France, i. 70 (l 893), ts mae keya the well-known Rf. cir- 
cinatus Sibth., and they were followed by Halicsy in “Cons. 
R. circinatus. The application of Gilibert’s name to any one 
species of the Batrachian group is, however, uncertain and in no 
-vanaheaetan breviora, et flos m The ‘“ entis”’ referre 
to is named “ R. as an the deooriptién given is 
that = R. fluitans. Since this vague diagnosis wi apply oie 
R. cirea 
is is not justified in taking up the name to the exclusion of a ie 
of certain and definite i MithAion. For much the same 
pare it is not wise to take up the name of R. trichophyllus for 
any of the three plants last mentioned. 
In the first volume of Villars’s Histoire des Plantes de Dau- 
hiné, among the lists of Chaix’s ‘‘ herborisations’’ occurs the 
cabalisti cally nic po try, “ Ranunculus trichophyllus (mihi) 
Hall. 1162,” without a single word of discriminating characters 
This by no means lucid reference may be ex ded into Historia 
stirpium indigenarum Helvetia, ii. p. 69, n. 1162. Though Haller 
distinguishes a var. a and var. 6 , and gives many synonyms, 
