ATA8ITE8 AND THTESANTHEMA. 155 



how men like to assume the exercise of it is well exemplified in 

 the action of the makers of the Kew Index. Mr. Beutham had 

 years before suggested that probably Thyrsanthema was the same 

 as Chaptalia ; but he doubted. In the Index the Benthamian 

 query is omitted, and the Neckerian genus is put down as posi- 

 tively the same as Chaptalia ; this, too, as I shall venture to 

 guess, without so much as a glance iit the pages of Necker. 

 Otto Kuntze had also tried to show that Bentham's doubts were 

 groundless, and that Chaptalia must positively be reckoned a 

 mere synonym of Thyrsanthema. But American botanists 

 ought to have learned by experience before now, Mr. Kuntze's 

 liability to err— and that by sheer superficiality of examination 

 — in his interpretation of Necker. Shall I point out some 

 instances of our having changed long lines of names according 

 to his dictates, and afterwards found ourselves obliged to 

 change them all back again ? 



For my part, I am sure I shall in no quarter be accused of 

 any bias against strict priority. If Thyrsanthema of 1790 is 

 the same as Chaptalia of 1800, with me the former stands, even 

 though with no one else. 



Let us open Necker's volume at pages 6 and 7, both occupied 

 by his four segregates of the Linnaean Tussilago. Two of the 

 segregates, Petasites and Tussilago are old genera well estab- 

 lished long before Linnaeus. Necker simply restores them, with 

 the names that belong to them by right of priority. His new 

 genera are Thyrsanthema and Atasites. The later furnishes a 

 luminous illustration of superficial slip-shod and bungling 

 methods of " authority " in disposing of Neckerian genera. I 

 think everybody who has ventured a say about it has said that 

 Atasites and Gerbera are identical ; and yet Gerbera with Lin- 

 naeus was an Arnica species. Necker says twice over on the 

 same page that Atasites is based on some Linnaean Tussilago, 

 while in one place only on the page, he intimates that Arnica 

 Gerbera may be included in Atasites. That is very different 

 from making it the type species of the genus. Now what Atasites 

 may be, I need not know. I only see that, according to Necker's 



