564 V1. AMENTIFERS. 
names used in an uncertain manner, and yet not feeling safely 
prepared to sift out properly the true from the false, the reliable 
from the unreliable records. 
The widest contradictions (and therefore errors on one side or 
other) are to be seen between the names given to the same Willow 
by different botanists, not simply among the inexperienced young, 
but even among the most experienced and the special experts. 
Thus, by the list of names taken into the ‘London Catalogue 
of British Plants,’ the nigricans and phylicifolia are two aggregates, 
each including eight or ten subordinate species or segregates. 
Surely, the two aggregates ought to be sufficiently distinguishable 
from each other, if their subordinate segregates can be also 
accepted as species! And yet my own herbarium distinctly answers 
‘no’ to the exclamatory query. Yorkshire specimens, female 
catkins and grown leaves, labelled “ Davalliana” by Mr. James 
Ward, are there corrected to “nigricans” by Dr. N. J. Andersson ; 
though the botanists of to-day pretty generally place Smith’s 
Davalliana as a segregate of phylicifolia, not of nigricans. Again, 
a young botanist (whom I suppose to have been guided in his 
nomenclature by Professor Balfour) sent me Highland Willows 
labelled “ Myrsinites var. arbutifolia?” Some time afterwards he 
wrote, “A Salix, which I sent you formerly, labelled ‘ 8. Myrsinites 
var. arbutifolia’, is stated by Mr. Babington to be ‘ S. phylicifolia, 
var.’” Here again the name is re-corrected by Dr. Andersson into 
‘nigricans’. And so far as I may venture to express an opinion, 
I hold the corrections by Dr. Andersson to be right in each 
instance. It would be easy to cite other such cases; even some 
instances where Mr. Borrer and Dr. Andersson are equally in 
contradiction with each other. But two are as good as two score, 
for the purpose immediately in view; namely, to illustrate the 
uncertainty of names and localities for the species in this trouble- 
some genus; an uncertainty greatly increased when the segregates 
come to be named and specially localized apart from each other. 
In the following account of them it is proposed, first, to take the 
segregates which have been usually assigned with some confidence 
to the aggregates already treated ; and afterwards to notice a series 
of other names which represent something additional, actual or 
supposed, along with errors and ambiguities of various kinds. 
The typical forms of the formerly treated aggregates, which bear 
only the same uames, are unavoidably passed over here, left as 
represented by the distribution indicated for the aggregate species ; 
their localities having usually been recorded under the name of 
double signification, and therefore as usually of doubtful significa- 
tion. “ Salix fragilis” may or may not mean Salia fragilis genuina ; 
“Salix alba” may or may not mean Salia alba genuina; “ Salix 
triandra” may or may not mean Salia triandra genuina; and so 
on, after the manner of distinction used in the nomenclature of 
