70 LEAFLETS. 



As to generic nomenclature there was no conservatism with 

 this author. He rejected all the old names, even Gmtiana itself 

 renaming the type of that genus Asterias in allusion to its star- 

 shaped yellow corollas. To Pneumonanihe he gave new name 

 Cyana. To the group of species with tetramerous but closed 

 corollas, a group typified by what Linnaeus long afterwards 

 called G. Cruciata he gave the name Treiorrhiza ; and what is 

 perhaps the most showy and beautiful member of this alliance, 

 the type subsequently denominated G. asclepiadxa, Linn., he 

 placed in generic rank under the name Dasy Stephana. 



This last name has now of late come to the front, in Mr. 

 Small's Flora, as the scientific appellation for our group of 

 Closed Gentians. The recognition of this group as a genus is, in 

 so far, a distinct advance upon the long undisturbed taxonomy 

 of the gentians ; but the taking up of Dasystephana as the name 

 is doubtless ill advised, and this not only as violating that prin- 

 ciple of priority which is said to be fundamental, but also 

 because no proper Dasystephana occurs within the limits of Mr. 

 Small's Flora. What is known as G.frigida, Haenke, of the far 

 West and Northwest is about the only American plant which 

 authors who have insisted on a segregation of the Linnsean Gen- 

 tiana have found congeneric with the G. asclepiadea of authors. 

 But, if the types of both Pneumonanthe and Dasystephana are to 

 be received as congeneric, then the former name is to hold by 

 virtue of its priority over the latter. It was upon this principle 

 that all or nearly all authors of the eighteenth and nineteenth 

 centuries who accepted the Closed Gentians in the rank of a 

 genus, found Pneumonanthe the rightful name for them and 

 employed it. Here is a partial list of, them: Gilibert (1781), 

 Necker (1790), F. W. Schmidt (1796), S. F. Gray (1821), G. 

 Don (1836), Eafinesque (1836), and by one or more much more 

 recent authors. 



Our North American species of PuBUMOiirANTHB, in so far 

 as known, bear names and synonyms as follows : 



