504 
Gillenia  Trifoliata. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharir. 
X     October,  1898. 
little  difficulty  in  believing  that  he  would  name  the  plant  in  honor 
of  the  one  in  whose  garden  the  rare  opportunity  of  examining  it 
was  afforded.  May  we  not  say  "  Gillenia — in  honor  of  a  grower  of 
rare  plants  at  Marburg  in  Austria?" 
In  recent  times  trouble  has  arisen  in  regard  to  the  names  of 
plants  from  the  fact  that  species,  supposed  to  be  distinct  and  named 
as  such,  have  been  referred  subsequently  to  one  species.  In  these 
cases  the  rule  proposed  was  that  the  oldest  name  should  prevail. 
But  in  many  cases  the  newer  name  has  widely  prevailed  before  the 
older  was  noted.  The  recent  effort  has  been  to  insist  on  the  older 
name,  and  a  new  rule  proposed  that  a  name  once  used  should  not 
be  employed  again.  As  it  is  expressed  "  once  a  synonym,  always  a 
synonym."  The  current  is  not  running  smoothly  in  this  direction, 
and  our  plant  has  been  dragged  into  the  whirlpool.  In  Britton  and 
Brown's  recent  work,  the  "  Illustrated  Flora  of  the  Northern 
States,"  Gillenia  is  dropped,  and  it  appears  as  Porteranthns ;  the 
name  being  given  by  Prof.  Britton  in  honor  of  Prof.  Thomas  C. 
Porter.  The  reason  given  for  this  is  that  Adanson  gave  the  name 
Gillena  to  a  genus  which  proved  to  be  the  same  as  Clethra.  Gillena 
thus  became  a  synonym  which  Britton  and  Brown  regard  as  ineli- 
gible. But  even  under  this  rule  the  change  seems  unjustifiable. 
Gillena  is  not  Gillenia.  If  a  difference  in  spelling,  though  but  in  a 
single  letter,  is  to  make  a  name  synonymous,  many  changes  will 
have  to  be  made  in  other  things.  The  new  name,  Porteranthus 
might  even  be  questioned,  as  Porterella  has  been  employed  before, 
though,  to  the  regret  of  all  who  would  see  Professor  Porter's  emi- 
nent services  to  botany  honored,  it  has  been  pronounced  synony- 
mous with  another  campanulaceous  plant.  Gillenia  will  probably 
prevail  for  our  plant. 
As  already  noted,  it  was  known  to  English  botanists  early  in  the 
seventeenth  century;  but  cultivators,  according  to  a  reference  in 
w  Philosophical  Transactions,"  n.  337,  p.  214,  n.  134,  are  indebted  to 
the  famous  amateur  gardener,  Henry  Compton,  Bishop  of  London, 
in  the  garden  of  whose  palace  at  Lambeth  it  was  found  growing  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  in  17 13. 
The  common  name,  "  Indian  Physic,"  refers  to  its  use  among  the 
Indians.  Some  authors  say  that  it  was  customary  for  some  tribes 
of  Virginia  Indians  to  meet  together  once  a  year,  and  go  through  a 
regular  system  of  purification,  accompanied  with  peculiar  religious 
