390 
Prain . — The Mercurialineae and 
referred to in any of the writings of Linnaeus ; the plant which Linnaeus in 
1753 did term Mercurialia procumbens is a species of Leidesia . 
When founding the genus Paradenocline in 1866 Muller indicated 
its affinity to Adenocline , Turcz., to which genus Baillon in 1858 had, after 
a fashion, transferred its solitary species. Muller treated the two genera as 
constituting a distinct group, the Adenoclineae, founded by him in 1865 
(Linnaea, xxxiv. 203) and characterized by its circumferentially inserted 
stamens and certain other characters. From Adenocline Muller distinguished 
Paradenocline because in the latter the anther cells are at first pendent as in 
Mercurialis itself ; he made no use of the erroneous character of entire 
styles which he had copied from Kunze. Bentham may have observed that 
this latter difference was non-existent ; he believed the former character to 
be at least inconstant, and decided in 1880 (Gen. PI., iii. 310) to revert to the 
view adopted by Baillon in 1858. In this Bentham was followed by Pax 
in 1890 (Nat. Pflanzenf., iii. 5, 49). This action is, however, somewhat too 
drastic and may, in part at least, have been encouraged if not induced by 
an error into which Bentham has been betrayed in his statement that 
Adenocline , Turcz., is a monoecious genus. The flaccid, pellucid foliage, 
the annual habit, and the androgynous inflorescences render Par adenocline , 
Miill. arg., so different from Adenocline , Turcz., that the claim of the former 
to rank as, at least, a distinct section is not open to dispute. 
Review of Adenocline. 
The genus Adenocline was established by Turczaninow early in 1843 
(Bull. Soc. Imp. Nat., Mosc., xvi. 1, 59) to include some South African 
species collected by Drege and Zeyher. Only one of these was known 
before 1843. This is the plant which Thunberg in his herbarium wrote up 
as Acalypha glabrata , but which was described in 1823 (Flor. Cap., ed. 
Schult., 546) as A. acuta , Thunb., a name repeated by Steudel in 1841 
(Nomencl., ed. 2, i. 10). 
When in 1843 E. Meyer referred what is Paradenocline , Mull, arg., to 
Mercurialis , he did not name any of the plants that Turczaninow included 
in Adenocline. Later in 1843 Meissner described as species of Mercurialis 
specimens of most of the species of Adenocline . That Meissner had not 
seen Turczaninow’s paper is shown by his reference under M. bupleuroides 
to specimens collected by Drege and cited by Turczaninow. By way 
of compensation there appeared in 1844 (Flora, xxvii. 121) a risumi of 
Turczaninow’s paper. Continuing the seesaw, Krauss, who had collected 
most of the specimens alluded to by Meissner in 1843, gave a rdsumi 
of Meissner’s paper in 1845 (Flora, xxviii. 84) without observing that he was 
dealing with Turczaninow’s genus, and without the attention of the editor 
of ‘ Flora ’ being attracted to this fact. It is clear that Turczaninow’s paper 
was unknown to Kunze in 1847, when he dealt, as a species of Mercurialis, 
