MITELLAStRA AND RtlBACEfe. 329 



A. Jacobaeus. Basal leaves more broadly cuneate-oboTate 

 remotely and lightly yet sharply toothed all around : Pods 2 J-3 

 inches long, firmly ascending, slightly incurved, not tortuous. — • 

 Cuyamaca Mountains, San Diego Co., 0. E. Orcutt, July, 1889 ; 

 his n. 1507, as in U. S. Herb. 



Mitellastra and Rubacer. 



Naturally interested, and even deeply and somewhat peculiarly 

 interested, in the new "North American Flora," I was startled 

 when for the first time I looked over the pages of the Saxifra- 

 gaceae, as I read that queer innovation in generic nomenclature, 

 the name Mitellastra; for I had not used or read the page of Mr. 

 Howell's book whence the name, impossible as that of a genus, 

 is said to have been taken. From my friend in the Oregonian 

 field, most capable as an observer and a reasoner upon matters 

 of mere taxonomy, I should with reason expect errors, and maybe 

 grammatic impossibilities, as to Latin nomenclature. 



Now, in the very metropolis of all North America, whence 

 this new Flora of so great worth and such bright promise ema- 

 nates, there should be available the services of some one in whose 

 mind such mere fundamentals of phytography as I shall name 

 have found a lodgment. One of these fundamentals is the knowl- 

 edge that each genus and each species is an abstraction of the 

 mind, and, as such, a unit ; that every particular genus and every 

 particular species is as certainly a unit as every individual plant 

 is a unit; that, therefore, every generic name and every specific 

 name is necessarily of the singular number. The other funda- 

 mental is, a fair knowledge of the declensions of Latin nouns 

 and adjectives ; for it is still everywhere professed that Latin is 

 the language of botanical nomenclature. 



One mentally equipped with these simple rudiments of phyto- 

 graphic knowledge sees at first glance that Mitellastra is a 

 plural ; that as the name of a genus it must appear as Mitel- 

 lastrum. That violence to grammar which defaces the page as 



' Leaflets, Vol. I. pp. 229-244, Sept. 24, 1906. 



