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THE AMERICAN NATURALIST [Vol. XLIV 



in particular are from the modern point of view a strange 

 medley. The genera Jungermannia, Targionia, Mar- 

 chantia, Blasia, Riccia and Anthoceros I have in my enu- 

 meration included in Bryophytes where they properly 

 belong, although they were placed by Linnaeus in Algae as 

 well as the genus Lichen with 80 species. The genus 

 Tremella with 7 species was also included in Algae, al- 

 though as far as the scanty descriptions can be identified, 

 3 are species of fungi, 3 algae and one a lichen. Some 

 of the 12 species of Byssus are algae, but the majority 

 it is impossible to recognize. Of the 11 species of 

 Spongia nearly all are animals. 



Of the later editions of the "Species Plantarum" the 

 fourth, according to some the fifth, has a partial revision 

 of the fungi by Link and of the mosses by Schwaegrichen, 

 but as these parts were not published until 1824-30 and 

 do not follow in any way the original edition of Linnaeus, 

 so far as priority of nomenclature is concerned, they 

 need not be considered here. Of the "Systema Plan- 

 tarum," Rei chard, 1780, and the "Systema Vegetabil- 

 ium" by Gmelin, 1796, by Persoon, 1797, and Sprengel, 

 1827, it can be said that although they include more 

 species than the original edition of Linnaeus they are 

 open to the same objection and, as will be seen later, 

 the dates of their publication are so near those of far bet- 

 ter works that their nomenclatorial value is of trivial im- 

 portance. If I have dwelt at what may seem too great 

 length on a consideration of the value of the "Species 

 Plantarum" as a basis of nomenclature, it has been for 

 the purpose of trying to make clear to those to whom 

 uniformity in nomenclature seems to be of the first im- 

 portance, why it is that to expect cryptogamists to adopt 

 the "Species" on the same basis as do phaenogamists is 

 unreasonable. To the latter the "Species" represents a 

 fundamental treatise; to the former a very meager and 

 unsatisfactory list of plants belonging to groups of which, 

 in the time of Linnaeus, there was really no exact knowl- 

 edge. 



