Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/326

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800 NOTES ON THE INDEX KEWENSIS. although he brings other extracted names out of Ludwig's Def. gen. pi., e.g. Eubeola, Cruciata). Cannabina Ludw. 1737, Mill. 1739 = Datisca L. 1747. (The Kew-Index gives only Cannabina ex L. 1749.) Guiabara Mill. 1739 = Coccoloba L. 1759. (The Kew-Index gives only Guiabara Boehm. 1760 and omits also the oldest name : Uvifera L. 1738.) Orleania Boehm-Ludw. 17C0 = Bixa L. Oct. 1737. (The Kew- Index omits the Orellana Ludw. May- June 1737.) Sesamodes Ludw. 1737 = Astrocarpus Necker 1790. (The Kew- Index gives only Sesamo(i)des Echb. 1828.) Can Mr. Jackson be indebted for these disorderly additions to the Kew staff, wherefrom no one is named and responsible ? The Kew Index brings many addenda" from Boehmer-Lud wig's Def. gen. pi. 1760 but Achyrodes Boehm. 1760 = Lamarckia Moench. 1794 has been overseen, although Achyrodes had been taken up by other botanists; see f. i. this Journal 1894: 185. Many thousands of species-names exist only in synonyms and are not named correctly or according to Hookerian genera-names, and are missing at all under the valid genus-name. I shall give only very few samples out of the " addenda " : Diplopyramis aethiopica WehY. (= Ceratogonon atriplicifulium) = Oxygonum (1822) without species name. The same under Cerato- gonon with 3 species, under Polygonum atriplicifolium Wall. 1828 and P. Owenii Bojer 1835, also under Oxygonum is missed the doubtless correct and valid name, 0. atrijMcifolium. Altogether in seven places the one correct name is omitted, through Mr. Jackson's unwillingness to form that correct name ! Perhaps he had not permission to do it ? Why did Sir Joseph Hooker not correct the thousand names of this kind ? Why had Mr. Jackson not in this line the aid of the Kew Staff as announced in the preface ? Had Mr. Jackson ever had any ordinate aid of the Kew Staff? Not so far as I know." Why is the work called Index Kewensis if it does not bring the names of Kew herbarium as they ought to be according to the best Kew work : Bentham & Hooker's Genera Plantarum. The title: Index Kewensis in the meaning of bringing a full and exact list of phanerogamic names as they ought to be in Kew is inaccurate. " Du soUst dem Ochsen, der da drischet, nicht das Maul verbinden," says a proverb, but they did not use at Kew that good principle ; I do not believe that they envied the task of naming the thousands of species transferendae. The " harmless

  • Mr. Jackson was never an officer of the Kew herbarium, but the " Kew

list," "Kew Index" being elaborated by him misled other botanists to believe him to be such ; e. g. thus Professor Buchenau (see Engler's Bot. Jahrb. xv : 256, note) who sent therefore his monograph of Tropaeolum requested by me for Mr. Jackson only to the Kew herbarium in March 1892 (as he wrote me) instead directly to Mr. Jackson. And this monograph has also been used by Mr. Jackson by correcting and omitting the wrong names, e. g. Tr. aureum = Tr. azureum; Tropaeolum denticulatum Kew list = Epilohlum denticulatum R. & P. as shown by Prof. Buchenau. The reproach against me in this Journal, 1894, 279, is therefore not substantiated; I fulfilled my part of contract.