389 
Adenoclineae of South Africa . 
had written up the same aggregate of three species and two genera as 
M. capensis. In 1858 Baillon renamed the same conglomerate Adenocline 
Mercurialise using this name in a sense different from that in which it 
was employed in 1843 by Turczaninow. 
Though it was not recognized that Meyer in 1843 had used two names, 
M. annua , Drege non Linn., and M. tricocca , E. Mey., for the same plant, it 
was soon noticed that more than one plant had been issued under the name 
M. tricocca , and we learn from Krauss that by 1845 Ecklon and Zeyher had 
already restricted the incidence of the name M. tricocca to the species with 
3-coccous capsules. Sonder in 1850 (Linnaea, xxiii. 111) adopted what had 
been Meyer’s intention and Ecklon and Zeyher’s usage ; by providing 
a brief diagnosis of the plant Sonder for the first time made it possible 
to cite Meyer’s name. But Sonder’s action was too late to effect its 
purpose. In 1846 Kunze had applied to the same species the name 
M, violaefolia (Ind. Sem. Hort. Bot. Lips. MDCCCXLVI, c. diagn.), and 
in 1847 had described it more fully under the same name (Linnaea, xx. 55). 
Kunze again referred to the species as M. violaefolia in 1851 (Linnaea, xxiv. 
162) ; it is under this name therefore that Baillon accounted for the species 
in 1862 (Adansonia, iii. 159)* There is nothing to indicate that Kunze 
suspected his Mercurialis violaefolia to be what Drege had mistaken in the 
field for M. annua , or to be what E. Meyer intended to indicate and Krauss 
did indicate by M. tricocca. But the name employed by Kunze does 
suggest that, whether he believed the two plants to be identical or not, he 
had gone to Hermann’s phrase Mercurialis africana dicoccos folio violae 
tricoloris for the idea which his own specific epithet conveys. The descrip- 
tion given by Kunze is so careful — the only serious error is the statement 
that the styles are entire — that it is most unlikely that he should 
have thought his 3-coccous species identical with the 2-coccous plant of 
Hermann. The name selected by Kunze had, however, a curious after- 
effect. 
When Muller first referred to the species on which his Par adenocline 
was based (DC. Prodr., xv. 2, 793) he adopted from Baillon the name used 
by Kunze, and termed the plant P. violaefolia\ as an afterthought ( 1 . c., 
1141) Muller treated as a certainty the idea which Kunze’s name ‘violae- 
folia ’ suggests. Since Kunze’s name may have been based on Hermann’s 
name, and since Linnaeus has cited Hermann's plant under M. procumhens , 
Muller decided that M. violaefolia , Kunze, and M. procumbenSe Linn., are 
identical, and that the name Paradenocline violaefolia , Mull, arg., must be 
replaced by the name P. procumbens . l Even if the premisses had been sound, 
the conclusion could not have been sustained ; P. procumbens , Mull, arg., is 
a species which does not occur in the Linnean herbarium, and has not been 
1 On p. 793 both names are used — P. procumbens in the note under the generic description of 
Leidesia , P. violaefolia in that under the account of L. oblusa. 
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