The nomenclature of the walnut family has been subjected to various revisions by botanists, during the present century, and there are probably others yet to follow in the near or distant future. In all other standard botanical works published prior to 1817-1818, the hickories were classed with the butternut, black walnut and Persian walnut, and under the generic name of _Juglans_. But in the year 1818 Mr. Thomas Nuttall, an eminent English botanist, who had given years to wandering through our forests and studying American plants, separated the hickories from the older genus of _Juglans_, placing them in a new one, to which he gave the name of _Carya_, from an ancient Greek name of the walnut tree. This classification of Nuttall's was immediately adopted by the botanists of his time, and has been observed, scarcely without question, by the authors of all the numerous botanical works published in America and Europe during the past seventy-five years. But now we are informed by some of our noted botanists that, in deference to the law of priority dominant in matters scientific, Nuttall's name for this genus must be abandoned, inasmuch as Mr. C. S. Rafinesque, an erratic Frenchman possessing considerable ability for botanical research, and who came to this country several years before Nuttall,--as some recent investigations appear to prove,--defined the distinct characteristics of the hickories, and not only proposed, but published the name _Hicoria_ for this genus in 1817, while Nuttall's _Carya_ did not appear until one year later, viz.: 1818. For these dates I am mainly indebted to Dr. N. L. Britton, who appears to have been delving among "first editions" of the works of the authors named (Bulletin, Torrey Botanical Club, 1888). It seems strange, however, at this late date, that such eminent botanists as the late Dr. John Torrey and Dr. Asa Gray, who were both intimately acquainted with, in fact associates of, Rafinesque, should have ignored his rights in regard to the name of _Hicoria_, if he was really entitled to the honor of founding this genus and separating the hickories from the _Juglans_. But for some good reason they left the matter in abeyance, for their successors to settle. Dr. Torrey does, in a way, recognize Rafinesque, in his "Catalogue of Plants Within Thirty Miles of the City of New York," published in 1819, but in a manner which shows that he had no confidence in Rafinesque's claim, but did approve of Nuttall's classifications and name of _Carya_, for on page 74 he refers to the hickories as follows: "_Carya_, Nuttall; _Hickoria_, Rafinesque."