Publication Dates of W. S. Sullivant's New Bryophytes

Abstract

The exact sequence of publication of the names of Sullivant's new Musci and Hepaticae between the years 1845 and 1875 has been determined, chief- ly by the use of manuscript letters from Sullivant to Asa Gray. At present many of the names are cited to different sources as a consequence of Sullivant's publi- cation of the same new taxa in several works, such as an exsiccata and its text, a journal or other collective volume and its preprint or reprint, as well as of questionable dates on title pages. Lack of information on the exact sequence of publication of Sullivant's work has led to inconsistency in the citation of his new taxa. One instance of a problem in need of solution involves the years 1845 and 1846. The exsiccata, Musci Alleghanienses, contain- ing 11 new species of mosses and seven new hepatics, has a title page date of 1845. Sullivant himself subsequently referred all the new names to the numbers on these spec- imens. Some modern authors, including Schuster (1980) and Crum and Anderson (1981) accept this. The text of the labels, Enumeratio, has a title page date of 1846; this is the publication cited by the authors of Index Muscorum (Wijk et al. 1962) for the new names. Several of these species were also described by Sullivant in Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, with a date of communication to the Academy of August 1846, but with 1848 on the title page of the volume. Grout (1936) used this as the source of new names in Fissidens. Investigation of Sullivant's activities in 1845-46 has uncovered two further publications competing for prior appearance of these same names. There was an earlier edition of the Enumeratio in 1845, of which most copies were suppressed by the author, and a review of the exsiccata, repeating in full the descriptions of the new taxa, which may actually have been published before the exsiccata or the 1846 Enumeratio were distributed. The year 1856 provides another instance of ambiguity, that four major works carry the same title page date. Identical new names were published in Sullivant and Lesquereux's numbered Musci Boreali-Americani Exsiccati and its paged text and in Sullivant's portion of the second edition of Gray's Manual of the Botany of the Northern States and its repaged reprint. Each of these has been regarded as prior by one author or another. Another source of confusion, which occurs in several different years, is the practice of many journals of the period of providing the authors with early separate copies of their contributions for personal distribution. Authors were apparently more openly anxious than at present to secure priority for their new names (see Sullivant's comments under No. 10 below). When advance copies were provided, neither the date on the title page of the volume nor the date, if given, of communication of the article to the society or editor may be the date of effective publication. Editors of government reports also used this device to conciliate authors who might lose priority by bureaucratic delay in printing. An extreme example is the report of the United States Exploring Expedition, of which the official