CLXX 
nizingly tells him he hopes he will take proper | the Linnaean turmoil was abrupt. Linnaeus, 
advantage of the researches and superior wis- | in the guise of a reformer, doubtless meaning 
dom of the author 4). | to advance science, and meaning well at first, 
The extent to which these changes have | nevertheless almost outraged the feelings of 
been made may be gathered from the author's | the best men of his time when he. rejected 
own summary, in which he states that he has | so large a proportion of those generic names 
reduced 151 genera; separated off 6 genera; | which had been either ereated or adopted by 
re-named 122 genera, because they bore names | the founder of scientific genera, Tournefort, 
homonymous with other genera; restored 952 | or by that man's already revered pupils and 
genera in accordance with the laws of prio- | other contemporaries. Nor was the plea of 
rity; and re-named upwards of 30,000 species | the exceeding inconvenience of all ad changes 
belonging to these genera! How he justifies | omitted. The ery of "confusion," and the 
these changes may be learnt from a few ex- | outery against Linnaeus as fhe author of it, 
amples, selected to illustrate the various exira- | appears fully to have equalled what we hear 
ordinary deviees employed by a writer who | nowadays against Dr. Kuntze, and the *Neo- 
professes to be animated by a sincere desire | Americans." The cry of "confusion" ceased, 
to reform and consolidate botanieal nomen- | after a time, though the confusion itself did 
celature. We may waive for the moment an- | hot. Strong protests against that extensive 
other phase of the question — how far ean | alteration of generie nomemclature of which 
botanists accept these identifieations, even if | Linnaeus was the author continued to be made 
they are prepared to accept the principle? | long after the publications of Siegesbeck, 
Astragalus, a genus of more than a thousand | Moehring, Ludwig and Heister; and the right 
species, is to be superseded by T'ragacantha, | of Tournefortian names to stand in place of 
because the latter name was published by | their Linnaean substitutes was insisted on— 
Linnaeus in his earlier erude *Systema" (1735), | more or less of them being restored in their 
though in his revised and improved work | books—by  Adanson (1763), Crantz (1760), 
he preferred and employed the former. Kuntze | Philip Miller (1768), Seopoli (1772), Lamarck 
says, in fact, that no author can be permitted | (1778), Gaertner (1788) and Moench (1794). 
to revoke any previously published name of | All these gave more or less emphatie disap- 
his own making, any more than those of | proval of the general course of matters in 
another person; and aecordingly he transfers | nomenclature, by reinstating pre- Linnaean 
page after page of names from .Astragalus to | genera and generie names, and giving the 
Tragaeantha, with the appended authority, | promise to yield even to the principle of 
^O. K." Other familiar large genera treated | priority if its advocates «succeed in populari- 
in the same way are: Erica, which becomes | zing their ideas of 'fright' and justice! in the 
FEricodes, on an even less tenable ground; | matter. I am glad that at Kew they write 
Pelargoniwm hasto cede to Geraniospermum; | so cautionsly, and that Mr. Hemsley put those 
and Clematis receives an additional syllable, | two words in quotation marks; otherwise, 
and in future we must say Clematitis. Re- | worthy men right have seemed to express an 
cent authors have eombined ZAododendron | unwillingness to have anything to do in the 
and .4zalea under the former, but Kuntze | work of establishing right and justice in their 
now gives them all names under the latter. | sphere, though willing to enjoy the peaceable 
Proceeding to examples of more far-fetched | fruits thereof, when perchance at some future 
changes, it may be noted that Cleistanthus day, these shall be ready to be gathered. 
is to be Kaluhaburunghos, though it was only 
the other day that Dr. Trimen discovered that 
a plant in Herrmann's herbarium, bearing this 
name, whieh was taken up by Linnaeus in 
his "Flora Zeylaniea", was the same as Cleistanthus acwminatus. Dr. Trimen also iden- 
tified Gaedawakka as of the same origin with Chaetocarpus, therefore Kuntze restores the 
former. Another excuse for ehanging names is the existence of two of the same derivation. 
Thus Glaucium cannot be tolerated by the side of Glaur, and Kuntze takes the oppor- 
tunity of dedieating the genus to his "dear sister Mary and her husband Franz Mosen- 
thin", and we get the new name JMosenthinia. Some other names of the same derivation 
are sufficiently. distinet to avoid confusion, yet Kuntze says they must be treated as homo- 
nyms. To tbis category belong Hydrothrix and Hydrotriche ; consequently the former is 
re-named Hookerina, though a JHookera exists and is accepted by our author, who also invents 
a Sirhookera! Failing any of the foregoing reasons, an old name may be. modified to con- 
^) I consulted that index only for determining 
names to my collected plants, making no use of that inde 
began to have inscribed the y 
Nomenclator. 
and giving specific 
X since Mr. Jackson 
ears" dates for the several genera from Pfeiffer's 
