236 Scientific Intelligence. 



speetion of the plant in the Banksian herbarium that T. rugosum 

 of Pursh is the old world T. glaucwn, wrongly attributed to an 

 American origin. And he shows, what we might have made out 

 at first, that the Thalictrum figured and described in Cornuti's 

 book must have been T. aquilegifolium of Europe. An inspec- 

 tion of Morison's figure brings the conviction that he copied from. 

 Cornuti, with some change to adapt it to the space. So that the 

 name T. Cornuti L., founded on these, must subside. 



Our tall polygamous species, with clavate filaments and short 

 blunt anthers must therefore take some other name. Lecoyer 

 brings up that of T. corynellum DC, Syst., on the ground that 

 the earlier names, T. polyganum Muni, and T. pubescens Pursh, 

 were founded on mixed material. This is true as concerns Pursh's 

 T. pubescens. But Muhlenberg's name, the earliest of all, is pure, 

 as the specimen he sent to Willdenow shows, and which Lecoyer 

 has seen ; and his description in his unpublished Florida Lancas- 

 triensis is explicit. We call this the earliest published name ; for 

 it is in the first edition of his Catalogue (1813) with a character 

 " smooth, polygamous," which, however short, distinguishes it 

 from any other of the Atlantic States. 



T. purpurascens L., the remaining species which Linnaeus re- 

 ferred to North America, Lecoyer also suppresses ; but we think 

 on insufficient grounds, into which this is not the. place to enter. 

 We ought sometimes to strain a point rather than abandon a 

 Linnean name. Lecoyer doubts if we can fully distinguish the 

 two species which were referred to T. purpurascens, i. e., T. 

 revolutum DC, and T. dasycarpum Fisher and Meyer. If he 

 could have studied the variations of this species as he has those 

 of T. minus of Europe (of which he enumerates over 200 syno- 

 nyms) he would most probably have combined them. And if he 

 really knew the well-formed fruit of T. occidentale, he might not 

 have reduced the species to the eastern T. dioicum, although 

 there are some intermediate forms. a. g. 



3. Nomenclature for Fossil leaves, etc. — Dr. Nathorst , con- 

 tributes an article on this topic {Benennung fossiler Dikotylen- 

 blatter} to the current volume of the Botanisches Centralblatt, (nos. 

 1, 2, 3), containing suggestions which, we suppose, most syste- 

 matic botanists would agree to and recommend to the phyto-pale- 

 ologists. The substance of his doctrine is, that scientific names, 

 for fossil as for existing plants, should as nearly and as clearly as 

 possible express our actual knowledge, neither more nor less. 

 For instance, the imprints of leaves which can be certainly or con- 

 vincingly referred to existing genera, will of course bear the 

 generic name. When the genus is certainly known to occur in 

 tbe given stratum, by its fruit or in some cases by very character- 

 istic venation of the leaf, all is clear. But as a rule, in formations 

 older than the Pliocene, fossil imprints should not be referred to 

 living genera without such evidence. It would much better 

 represent the facts, in such cases, to employ the name of the prob- 

 able genus prefixed to phyllum : e. g. Aceriphyllum, Magnoli- 



