Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/447

 415 LIST OF BRITISH CYPERACEiE (EXCLUDING CAREX). By C. B. Clarke, F.R.S. I SEND you the names of the English CyperacecB, other than Carex, as they stand in my MS. of the Order. I have referred under each to Syme Engl. Bot. v. x. so as to identify the plant meant without quoting any synonymy. His list of species exactly coincides with mine; his subspecies are only varieties for me. I have one additional species only, the Schoenus ferriigineus, lately got by Buchanan White. The references to Linnasus' Species Plantarum are, as has long been usual in botanic literature, to the second edition. This edition is Linnaeus's matured view, and it is only necessary in a very few cases (not at all in Cyperacece) to quote the first edition also, where some other author gives the plant a name between the first and second editions. The names of these plants will of course vary a good deal according to the genera admitted. In this matter I have followed Kunth, Bentham, and Boeckeler, rather than Syme ; for example, I admit Eleocharis as distinct from Scirpus, while I sink Blysmus. But, assuming for a moment that everybody accepts the genera as I limit them, there still remain, in the present small list of un- contested species, a great percentage of names that may and will be contested. 1st. There is the case where a single species of Linnaeus is now regarded as two. The question arises whether the Linnean name is to be retained for one of the two new ones. If, in such cases, the Linnean name is not to be kept, we shall lose about thirty per cent, of our Linnean names at once; and I cannot venture to guess, under the present splitting process, how many Linnean names will be left finally. In the subjoined short list, the Linnean name Eiiophorum polystachyon is gone, w^hile the Linnean name Scirpus setaceus is retained. I have done this because my pre- decessors have done this, and it is convenient not to disturb. It will be said that the retention of the Linnean name must in these cases depend on the quantity of confusion Linnaeus has imported. This, like the question of sufficient description, will be measured differently by different minds, and presents an obstacle to that finality of naming which some see their way to. 2nd. There is the case (which very frequently arises) where R. Brown gives a list of the Scirpus species which he transfers to Eleocharis, but does not say what their specific names will be under Eleocharis. In this case, European writers attribute the Eleocharis species to R. Brown (as is done below) ; but the American modern school refuses to admit the authority. 3rd. There is the case where a man alters the spelling of the name of the genus to which he attributes a species. My practice is to accept the new spelling if the first distmctive letters of the name are preserved ; but if an author alters Eleocharis to Heleo- charis or Rynchospora to Rhynchospora, thus introducing trouble