320 Scientific Intelligence. 
quently does not appear in that work. So Professor Baillon was 
not aware of it when, in January last, he published the same 
singular genus (in Bull. Soc. Linn. Paris, no. 82, p. 660) under 
the name of Loasella, with some interesting remarks. He found 
a specimen in the Mexican herbarium of M. Thiebault, who col- 
lected it Jong ago, at Guaymas, which is on the Mexican side of 
the Gulf of California, almost opposite Cape Pulpito. The char- 
acters of Sympetuleia aurea are exactly those of Baillon’s Loa- 
sella rupestris, except that the corolla-lobes of the latter were 
thought to be “perhaps valvate,” whereas we found them to be 
imbricate in the bud. 
Index to Plant-Names.—It is generally known to botanists that 
Mr. Darwin—wishing to supply to this generation an advantage 
which he had experienced the want of himself—provided the means 
of preparing and publishing, under the superintendence of the Di- 
rector of Kew Gardens, a new and complete Index of Phaneroga- 
mous Plant-Names. The formidable task has been assigned to 
Mr. Daydon-Jackson, one of the secretaries of the Linnean Society, 
who is particularly well versed in botanical bibliography, and to 
a number of assistants. Their work was commenced five years 
ago. The editor now publishes, in the Journal of Botany, British 
and Foreign, for March, the first portion of a report of progress, 
in which the plan adopted is to a certain extent explained. The 
work was at first intended to be a kind of new edition of Steudel’s 
Nomenclator, based systematically on Bentham and Hooker’s 
Genera Plantarum; but it was soon determined that the names 
should be followed by references, and that in other respects it 
would have to be constructed upon original lines. We judge 
that this great undertaking has been most carefully planned as to 
system and details. Two or three condensed extracts from this 
report suffice for noting certain points. 
“Our starting-point, then, is the publication of Linnzeus’s first 
edition of the Systema, in 1735, which he followed up by the 
Genera, in 1737... . Where Linneus ascribes the genus to an 
earlier author, we say ‘Tourn. ex Linn.,’ ete., but do not refer 
directly to pre-Linnean literature.” This is well. 
“The first edition of the Species Plantarum was issued in 1753, 
and that we must regard as the introduction of nomina trivialia.” 
So we shall have the earlier Linnean species cited correctly, and 
not from a later edition. The same, no doubt, of genera. 
‘“‘Robert Brown published a genus as Eleocharis, which Lesti- 
hedris altered to Heleocharis, as more accordant with the Greek, 
an alteration adopted by many subsequent writers, who never- 
theless employ Beauvois’s Oplismenus, which is equally faulty, 
without a sign of reprobation.” Whatever small emendations 
of a name may be allowed, it will never do to change the initial 
letter for the sake of classicalness. 
“While on the subject of fixity of name, I would remark that 
our practice is to take the name under which any given plant 
is placed in its true genus as the name to be kept up, even 
though the author may have ignored the proper rule of retaining 
