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ON SPARGANIUM. 235
The S. natansTi. Spec. Plant., is unquestionably an aggregate
name, intended to include, so far as we can gather the purpose of
Linne, all the floating forms ; and including, according to the
synonymy given, two perfectly distinct species. (The object of
previous notes on this name has not been to strongly advocate its
retention, but rather to insist that the name must be applied as in
Flo. Danica SuppL, or dropped altogether.) It has been remarked
that the second and third synonyms quoted in the ' Species Plau-
' tarum do not belong to the plant now known as S. natans L. ; this
is true enough, for one at least of them belongs to S. viiniinuni
Fries; and it maybe added that the S. natans of Linn. Herb, is
also .S'. iiihwiniiii Fries, accompanied by a scrap which, when I
examined the plants some six years ago, I was not able to determine
with certainty. But when attempting to ascertain whether
there exist any grounds on which an aggregate name can fairly be
used in a segregate sense, it will hardly do to take into consideration
tlie second and third synonyms while practically ignoring the first,
all three of them belonging to the ante-binomial period. Now the
first synonym quoted in the ' Species Plantarum' is Linne's own
SpanjanUim foliis natantihxis i^lano-convexis, Flo. Lapp, ed, i. p. 271,
at the time it was described, a new species. The description given
in the ' Flora Lapponica '
is, of course, not quite what would be
written by a specialist in the genus at the present day ; still, so far
as it goes, it may very well represent the plant now known as
there is nothing in the description antagonistic to its
S. natans L. ;
use in this sense, while several characters given are quite distinctive.
But there is another point in connection with the Flo. Lapp, plant
which is of equal importance, wliile it does not admit of any doubt
and that is that the description is beyond question absolutely inapplicable
to S. ojfine Schniz., and still more inapplicable to
iS'. niiiiiinum Fries. This being the case, I aver that if the name
S. natans L. is to be retained at all, it must be applied in the sense
of the first synonym quoted ni ' Species Plantarum,' ignoring the
second and third synonyms in favour of the first ; not ignoring the
first, Linne's own, synonym in favour of the second and tliird,
which refer to other plants. The name is certainly more deserving
of retention than many other Linnean names still used by some
writers ; moreover, its meaning is now pretty well known, while
most modern botanists have seen the errors of their ways, and have
ceased to apply it either to .S'. a {fine or to .S'. minimum. An exception,
however, is to be found in Dr. Meinshausen, who, in his " Die Sparganion
Paisslands " (' Bull, de la Soc. Imper. des Nat. de Moscow,'
1889, No. 1), makes 8. aj/inc to be simply a synonym of .V. natans
L. Dr. Meinshausen, however, scarcely takes us beyond the time
of Fries' writings, while our knowledge of the genus has certainly
greatly increased since that time ; nor does he even quote tiio
plates, in Flo. Danica Suppl., of the Scandinavian species ; and
liowover few references may be given, tliese plates, at least, do not
athnit of being pasf-ed over in any modern review dealing with the
more boreal European forms. It may be added that Dr. Meinsliauseu's
acquaintance with N. ajfinc appears to be slight, which is,