— 7 — 
Lecanactis Salicina A. Zahlbruckner, sp. nov. in litt. Conspicuously dis- 
tinguished by a densely white pruinose disk. On Salix lasiolepis, Rus- 
tic Canon, Santa Monica Mts. Sawtelle, California. 
A NOMENCLATURE NOTE. 
John M. Holzinger. 
The vicissitudes of scientific names are curiously illustrated by the way 
Homalotheciella subcapillata (Hedw.) Card. (1904) came to displace Bur- 
nettia subcapillata (Hedw.) Grout (1903). When the writer chose the former 
generic name for the D. C. moss published in the September, 1907, Bryolo- 
gist, he considered as correct Mr. Cardot’s contention in The Bryologist of 
March, 1904. And the statement in Dr. Sudworth’s published comments (l.c. 
p. 91) that “ Grout’s position in passing over these two section names of Car- 
dot’s is unsupported, etc.” seemed also eminently fair and correct. The cor- 
respondence brought on by this publication, however, has, together with 
repeated study of the Vienna Code, led to a different conclusion. 
It appears that it was Dr. Grout’s discovery that Homalothecium is not 
tenable. He therefore published Burnettia in July, 1903 (Bryologist, p. 65). 
At the time of this publication this author was not aware that Mr. Cardot 
had, in 1899, four years before, established two sections of the genus Homal- 
othecium; Homalotheciella , and Euhomalothecium (Bull. Herb. Boiss. Vol. 7, 
p. 374). And even had he known of Mr. Cardot’s section names, Dr. Grout 
was not compelled, by any rule in the Code of Vienna at least, to adopt 
Homalotheciella in place of Homalothecium. This of course is indicated 
only in Recommendations XXI 3 £, p. 47, of that Code. It must therefore be 
admitted that he was quite within his right as author to establish Burnettia . 
And, according to the Vienna Code it seems that, other things being equals 
Burnettia would stand even against Mr. Cardot’s contention on behalf of his 
own first section name superceding Homalothecium , in The Bryologist, 
March, 1904. In corroboration of this, note the first example under Art. 49, p. 
48, where the section Campanopsis R. Br. (1810) of the genus Campanula 
was in 1814 first raised to generic rank by Schrader, who called the 
genus thus split off Wahlenbergia; it helped Mr. Otto Kuntz not a bit to 
resuscitate Robert Brown’s Campanopsis. This author had used Cainpan- 
opsis surely not as a generic name. Thus Schrader’s is the first generic 
name really published, and so stands , although published four years later 
than “Campanopsis.” 
Here, however, the parallelism ends. For, correspondence has un- 
earthed the fact that Burnettia Grout is antedated by over fifty years by 
Burnettia Lindb., for a genus of Orchids, and “ has been in continuous use 
ever since.” The next earliest tenable name published for Homalothecium 
as a genus name is, therefore, Homalotheciella Cardot, 1904; this is 
because Burnettia 1903 was preoccupied, not because Mr. Cardot’s ..argu- 
ment was right. 
Curiously, in this little quadrangular affair, every one involved appears 
to have been partly wrong. At least the writer cheerfully confesses himself 
to have been in error as herein stated. Winona, Minn. 
