Take the second point first. On glancing at the “Flora of North America,” of Torrey and Gray, 1, 619, where the name Conioselinum Canadense legitimately came in, you will notice that the name Apium bipinnatum, Walt., is not cited as a synonym; also that the synonymous name of Cnidium Canadense, Spreng., is cited with “excl. Syn.” This Apium bipinnatum, Walt., you might gather was one referred to. Sufficient reason for the exclusion by Dr. Torrey might have been that Michaux’s plant is a cold northern one, which nobody would expect in or near Walter’s ground--the low and low middle part of Carolina. Besides, the preface of that “Flora” states that Walter’s herbarium had meanwhile been inspected by Dr. Torrey’s colleague, who may now add that the Apium bipinnatum is not there. So that the name you adopt rests wholly upon a mere guess of Sprengel’s, copied by De Candolle, dropped on good grounds by Torrey, but inadvertently reproduced in Watson’s “Index,” copying De Candolle. I suppose you would not contend that a wholly unauthenticated and dubious (I might say, doubtless mistaken) name, under a wrong genus, should supersede by its specific half a well-authenticated and legitimate name. And I am sure that you will not take it amiss when I say that very long experience has made it clear to me that this business of determining rightful names is not so simple and mechanical as to younger botanists it seems to be, but is very full of pitfalls. I trust it is no personal feeling which suggests the advice that it is better to leave such rectifications for monographs and comprehensive works, or at least to make quite sure of the ground.