[36] See Addenda, d, p. 282 following.
[37] In the Mycetozoa, 2nd ed., p. 158, is cited Stemonitis virginiensis Rex as a synonym of this variety. By reference to p. 163 of the present volume the Virginian stemonitis is left as Rex assigned it, and if the present variety be synonymous, it should be quoted there. The treatment of the species C. nigra in the second edition does not establish such fact, nor with three varieties make for any increasing clearness.
[38] It had seemed less necessary to retain the classic orthography in this instance since De Bary and Rostafinski both use Diachea. But modern scholarship is nothing if not meticulous; it is the fashion in Latin still to keep the digraph, even to the vexation of all men. In the same way when Bulliard wrote leucopodia, 'white stockings', he doubtless meant to be exact.
[39] For this citation we are indebted to Mr. Hugo Bilgram.
ADDENDA
a. This volume is as we see, a descriptive list of the various forms of the Myxomycetes in so far as these have come to the personal notice of the writer.
Each form is designated, as is usual in discussing objects of the sort, by a particular binomial name, followed, in abbreviated form, by the name of the student or author who in describing the form in question used the combination. Thus Stemonitis splendens was first described by Rostafinski, and the name he thus used is applicable to the form he described, wherever found, and to nothing else.
The proper naming of any specimen would thus appear to be a very simple matter. Such, however, is often not the case, particularly where we are concerned with species long familiar to science. Such often have received, at different times, and at the hands of the same author, or certainly of different authors, different names, given for various reasons; so that one who would refer to, or discuss, a single specimen to-day finds himself often in great uncertainty, confronted by a multitude of binomial combinations all thought to refer to the same particular thing.
By general consent, of course, we strive to ascertain the oldest name on the list; the first that is really and clearly applicable, and we write all other names down as synonyms. In this volume a list of synonyms often accompanies the description; precedes it, showing, year by year, the history of the case; an abstract in fact of the title, as at last approved. The preparation of such an abstract is very troublesome, but is believed to be worth the trouble; must be made, indeed, if we are ever in our discussions to be sure that when we speak or write in America, we are dealing with the same thing intended by the man who speaks or writes in England, or elsewhere.