26 
THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
H is friends had hoped that lie would have been able to use his 
retirement in writing a comparative and systematic treatise on the 
flowering plants. I say advisedly that no man living could have done 
it as he could from first-hand knowledge, wide and deep, and regu¬ 
lated by grasp of principle and mature judgement; moreover, his 
experience as a systemafcist was unrivalled. But it was not to he. 
He had worn himself out in the service of others. That wonderful 
resistant and elastic fibre had been strained beyond the limit, and 
was past real recovery. Already in the summer of 1021 the silver 
cord was loosed and the golden bowl broken. 
In all the gallery of Scottish botanists, whose portraits and whose 
lives Balfour knew so well, there never was one like him—so catholic 
in his tastes, so willing to help others, and so able to do it from his 
ample stire. Landowners, horticulturists, foresters, and farmers, as 
well as specialists in pure science, looked to him for advice, and 
acknowledged its worth. Trulv if ever there was one, he was in the 
fullest sense of the words “The King’s Botanist for Scotland. 
SHORT NOTES. 
Comma between Name and Authority (pp. 261, 337). Hr. 
Barnhart suggests that the comma between scientific name and 
authority was introduced by the elder Hooker, and that it has never 
been used outside the British Empire except by Asa Gray and those 
who have followed him. Both suggestions appear to be unfounded. 
Those who are interested in such typographical details will find that 
the comma was used by Robert Brown in his classic paper on the 
Asclepiadece (Mem. Wern. Soc. i. 12-78 ; 1811), good examples 
occurring on pp. 27, 31, 51. Hid Hooker use it previously? I am 
aware that he adopted it in his Exotic Flora (1823-1827). Among 
numerous French papers in which the comma was used may be men¬ 
tioned A. Richard’s memoir on the Ilubiacece (Mem. Soc. Hist. Nat. 
Par. v. 81-304; 1834) and Planchon and Triana’s Guttiferce (Ann. 
Sc. Nat. ser. 4, xiii.-xvi. ; 1860-1862). Surely Hr. Barnhart’s search 
for the comma must have been perfunctory.—T. A. Sprague. 
-I have to apologise to Hr. Barnhart for an erroneous 
statement in my note on this subject in Journ. Bot. 1922, p. 337, 
where T instanced Wallroth’s Annas £ of aniens as one of the non- 
British books in which the comma was used between name and 
authority. The comma is not so used in that book ; I am quite 
unable to account for the blunder. —James Groves. 
Tapes of Linnean Species. The cases of 3Icscml)rg anthem am 
scabrum and 31. tortuosum (L. Sp. PL ed. 1, 483, 487) may be 
cited in support of Mr. Wilmott’s contention (Journ. Bot. 1922, 
197) that a vnr. jo (without varietal name) may be taken as the type 
of a Linnean species. When Linnaeus (Sp. PI. ed. 2, 692) divided 
31. scabrum into two species he retained the name for his var. /3, and 
gave a new name, 31. emarginahnn to his o. His treatment of 
