Meconopsis and Cathcartia . 327 
tion for the recognition of Meconopsis as generically distinct from Papaver . 
In 1888 Greene (Pittonia, i. 168) had occasion to discuss the nature of the 
gynoecium in three Californian species : Papaver calif ovmicum, Gray, which 
has a disk like that of P. dubium ; P. Lemmoni , Greene, where the vertex 
of the capsule, from his description, is like that of P. stylatum ; and the 
plant taken by Greene to be Meconopsis heterophylla . Owing to the some- 
what intermediate nature of the gynoecium of Papaver Lemmoni , Greene 
has decided, as Don had decided more than sixty years before, that the 
recognition of the genus Meconopsis , as distinct from Papaver , is uncalled 
for. In this view he has been followed by Jepson (Flor. West Mid. Calif., 
309). From what has been said above, and from an examination of the 
figures in PI. XXIV, it will be seen that the position of Don and Greene 
and Jepson is perhaps stronger than any of them had reason to believe. 
In spite, however, of the weight of authority on the other side, the 
writer feels that it would be inconvenient, even if it were necessary, to 
adopt the suggestion made by Don and revived by Greene. Had it been 
merely a matter of dealing with the original European Meconopsis and 
the Californian forms, the conclusion might have been accepted and the 
species in question treated as aberrant Papavers. But we have to deal 
with four-and-twenty Asiatic forms as well, and in considering these we 
have to face another troublesome question. The genus Cathcartia , as we 
now know, differs from Meconopsis by only one valid character : in 
Meconopsis the capsules open by apical chinks, in Cathcartia the valves 
split to the base. If Meconopsis is an unsatisfactory genus, Cathcartia too 
must go. So alike are the two, that authorities so great as Maximowicz 
and P'ranchet have taken Meconopses to be Cathcartiae , and the writer 
believes that one species described by Franchet as a Meconopsis is really 
a Cathcartia. But if Cathcartia disappears nothing can save Stylophormn , 
and Stylophorum is, after all, only Chelidonium. Nor can we stop here. 
There are species of Papaver . like P. orientate , Linn., with 3-merous 
flowers ; -species like P. pavoninnm , Schrenk, with horned sepals ; species 
like P. horridum , DC., and like Meconopsis horridula , Hook. f. and Thoms., 
with spinescent leaves and capsules. We therefore find, in the conjoined 
genera Papaver and Meconopsis , practically every character that marks 
Tournefort’s genus Argemone . If we follow Don and Greene in the 
suggestion that Viguier’s work be cancelled, we may find ourselves left 
without a landmark in the natural family Papaveraceae. 
The occurrence of intermediate forms is not in itself a sufficient reason 
in all cases for the combination of nearly allied genera. To cite familiar 
instances where there really are intermediates, no one seriously thinks of 
uniting Aconitum and Delphinium , and few have been so bold as to advocate 
the reduction of Cirrhopetalum to Bulhophyllum . However, in the case 
now under consideration, the fusion which has been suggested is not 
