HITCHCOCK AND CHASE NORTH AMERICAN PANICUM. 15 



name Panicum for the group which he segregated as Setaria, and 

 restore the name Milium for the group which he called Panicum. But 

 since botanists have for one hundred and fifty years almost unani- 

 mously accepted the nomenclatorial idea of retaining the name 

 Panicum for the group containing P. miliaceum, it would be unwise to 

 alter the application of the names Panicum and Milium unless it 

 becomes the consensus of botanical opinion that all generic names 

 shall be based upon historic types. Aside from the nomenclatorial 

 confusion arising from such a series of changes, we fear that the diffi- 

 culties and uncertainties encountered in an attempt to establish a 

 stable nomenclature on such a basis would be much greater than those 

 that have arisen in applying the generic names in accordance with the 

 American Code of Botanical Nomenclature, which arbitrarily fixes 

 1753 as the date from which priority shall be reckoned and allows the 

 type of Linnaean genera to be selected from economic species. 



HISTORY OF PANICUM AFTER 1753. 



The second edition of Linnaeus' s Species Plantarum contains 

 twenty-eight species of Panicum, including all except two of the origi- 

 nal twenty. Panicum dissectum was removed to Paspalum, estab- 

 lished by Linnaeus in 1759, and Panicum americanum was transferred to 

 Holcus as H. spicatus. In 1772 Panicum sanguinale was separated 

 by Scopoli as Digitaria sanguinalis, and in the course of a few years 

 other species of the first group, Spicata, were separated from Panicum 

 and assigned to the genera Setaria, Echinochloa, Oplismenus, and 

 others. Panicum dactylon was included by Linnaeus in his second 

 group, Paniculata, though the inflorescence is spicate as he himself 

 describes, " Panicum spicis digitatis patentibus." This species was 

 soon made the type of a new genus, Capriola Adans., and, later, of 

 CynodonEich. Later authors have almost universally retained the 

 name Panicum for the paniculate species, and often have included 

 as sections Echinochloa and Digitaria. 



Miller reverts to the original use of the generic names Milium 

 and Panicum, the former including, among other species, M. panicum 

 {Panicum miliaceum L.) and M. effusum L., and the latter including 

 P. germanicum, P. italicum, and three kinds of pearl millet (Pen- 

 nisetum). Moench 6 and Adanson c also use Milium and Panicum 

 in the pre-Linnaean sense, the former being credited to Tournefort 

 (based on Panicum miliaceum L.) and the latter by Moench to 

 Gaertner (who figures Ohaetochloa glauca), and by Adanson to Plinius 

 (who describes Ohaetochloa italica). 



a Gard. Diet. 1768. & Meth. PL 1794. c Fam. PI. 1763. 



