COMMENTAET. 63 



This discussion was agaia taken up in Congress (see 

 Proceedings), but, when votiag was resorted to, an immense 

 majority stood in favour of the old system, as supported 

 by us. 



49. It is not quite correct to say that a genus or a 

 species is of such an author, when the signification at- 

 tributed to such groups by that author has been altered. 

 It is on this account that Robert Brown, as well as several 

 other authors after him, and still more recently Dr. Miiller, 

 of Argovia,^ have considered as being made by them 

 groups whose name was ancient, — of Liunseus, for instance, 

 — but whose characters or composition they had sensibly 

 modified. Thus R. Brown (Prodr. Fl. Novse HoU., p. 494) 

 gives a genus Myosotis, without any author's name (which 

 signifies in this work that the genus is his own; see, p. 495, 

 Hxarrhena, and elsewhere), and adds, as a synonym, Myoso- 

 Udis sp., L. In like manner, he makes a genus Oynoglossum 

 (p. 495), which has for synonym Cynoglossi sp., L. He attri- 

 butes Convolvulus to Jacquin (p. 482), with the synoiiym 

 Oonvolvuli sp., L., because he takes the genus such as it 

 was after being modified by Jacquin. In Hke maim.er, De 

 Candolle (Prodr. iii. p. 121) attributes his genus Bhexia to 

 Brown, because he comprehends it as Brown did ; and as 

 a synonym he gives BhexicB sp., L. Thus, too, he says 

 Crassula, Haw. (see Prodr. iu. p. 383), and gives as a syno- 

 nym Orassulce sp., L. Dunal, in the 'Prodromus,' writes 

 Solanwm, Sendtn. Such examples could easily be multiplied. 



It must be allowed that the process is rigorously exact. 

 The genus Myosotis of Brown is not precisely that of Lin- 

 naeus. Linnaeus would, perhaps, not have understood it in 

 the same way as Brown ; consequently, it is neither exact 

 nor proper to attribute it to him. On the other hand, this 

 system has the great defect of acknowledging a multitude 

 of genera bearing the same name, but scarcely difi'ering one 

 from another, — an encumbrance to. synonymy, and still more 

 so to indexes ! In the course of fifty years or a century, 

 botanists would be quite lost in the midst of so many names ; 

 ' In the Euphorhiacea of the ' Prodrorans,' xv. sectio 2. 



