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code, your name of Conioselinum bipinnatum, even if founded in fact, 

 would be inadmissible and superfluous. By a corollary of the rule 

 that priority of publication fixes the name, taken along with the 

 fact [that] a plant-name is of two parts, generic and specific, it 

 follows that in any case, Cnuo^inum Cunudcme is the prior name 

 for those who hold to the genus Conioselinum. I have laid down 

 what I take to be the correct view as to this, in my Structural 

 llntiinii, paragraph 71)1, where it is supported by the high authority 

 of Bentham. I believe it is more and more acceded to by the most 

 competent judges. There are those who make transpositions of 

 divorced halves of plants name [plant names] , and who also make 

 the law of priority mechanically override other equally valid laws, 

 without regard to sense. To such the old law maxim of the elder 

 DeCandolle was applied ; sumwum jus, sun, ma injuria. If you like 

 to adopt their ideas, you have at hand a still older, the very oldest, 



plant we are concerned with is Athamantha Chinensis of Linnaeus. 



" Very truly yours, 



"Asa Gkay." 



SHORT NOTES. 

 Oechis strateumatica L.— In the Flora of British India fvi. 103) 

 Sir Joseph Hooker has the following note on this plant : — " Neottia 

 > Br. 1'iodr. 319 (in note). In a note under Neottia 

 amtralis Brown refers the u, hi, , ,t,umatica of Linnaeus (Flor. 

 Zajlan. n. 319; Sp. L'lant. i. Uloi to Spirauthes, on the faith of a 

 specimen in Hermann's Herbarium; but Linnaeus' character of 

 ' spur slender, as long as the ovary,' is quite opposed to this 

 determination. I do not know what it is." Sir Joseph has over- 

 looked Br. Tnmen's identification of Hermann's plant with Zemine 

 sulcata Lmdl. (Joum. Liuit. Sue. xxiv. 149), and apparently does not 

 realise that the "specimen in Hermann's herbarium" is the type 

 of Linnseus's plant. The history of this valuable collection is given 

 by Dr. Trimen (I. c. 129-132) ; but it may be well to call attention 

 to its ready accessibility in the Botanical Department of the British 

 Museum, where so much important material for the determination 

 of the plants of the older writers is stored. The advocates of the 

 adoption of the oldest specific name will doubtless insist that this 

 commonest of Indian orchids shall be known in future as Zeuxine 

 ttrateumatica. I may say that there can be no doubt as to the 

 accuracy of Dr. Trimen's determination, as Hermann's specimen is 



caule ad summum folioso. Burm. Zeyl." — the first name which he 

 quotes in establishing hid < '/•. /,,, itrat,, umatica. — James Britten. 



Erucastrum Pollichii in Cambridgeshire (Juum. Bat. 1892, 

 808). — From a letter and specimen preserved in the University 

 Herbarium, I find that this plant was obtained in 1683 by the late 

 Wm. Marshall, of Ely, from Newmarket Heath, "by the Devil's 



