CLXXXIV 
maging of old literature can bring to light, and we may. be certain it "sean end im 
Kuntze. For one, I most devoutly wish the strict law of priority were a the bottom of the 
sea. 
i : / 'e mor 1l parehments less. 
It does seem that it would be better to study nature more anc ] is 
the proof of a pudding is said to be the eating, and this closely printed book of a thousand 
But 
; AC PUR 
pages is eommended tho the digestion of Messieurs the systematists. — Erwin F. Smith, 
Washingthon, D. C. 
Februar 1892, B. DaydonJackson, 
Secr. L. &., in Journal of Botany Bri- 
tish ... p. 57 writes as to my Revisio 
generum plantarum: 
Dr. Kuntze returned from his journey 
round the world in 1876, and his principal 
oceupation sinee has been the determination 
of his plants, altogether about 7000 species, 
with nine new genera, 152 new species, and 
several hundred new varieties. PDut, as will 
be seen from the title-page, this part of the 
author's work is almost completely lost in the 
revision of genera and their contained species, 
which has been elaborated during the period 
of preparation. 'The remarkable character of 
this may be understood from his own state: 
ment, that he has monographically revised 
109 genera, sunk 151, renamed 122 on ac- 
count of their *homonymy,;" changed 952 names 
to their *legitimate" older ones, with a specific 
renaming of more than 30,000 plants on these 
grounds. 
These results could only be aítained by a 
striet adherence to some rule, and that a very 
peeuliar one; and it must be admitted that the 
author has been thoroughgoing and relentless 
in his operations, which we have now briefly 
to examine, for a full discussion of them 
would expand this notice to an inordinate 
length. 
In his introduction Dr. Kuntze states his 
reasons for his procedure, gives his ideas as 
to numerous alterations in the Laws of Nomen- 
elature (this section extends to forty-six pages), 
gives a section in English as to insular errors, 
and supplies many useful ascertained dates of 
clashing publieations; all of which it is im- 
possible here to discuss. Suffice it to Say, 
that the author takes the date of issue of 
Linnaeus's first edition of his Systema Naturae, 
1735, as his arbitrary starting-point, and thence- 
forward assigns an equal value to every name 
that happened to be launched, as being of 
the same value from a systematic point of 
view. It follows from this that almost the 
whole of the work before us is vitiated by 
the fallaey that the Linnean nomenclature was 
full and complete in 1735 20). As a matter 
of fact, that nomenclature did not receive 
hotanieal nomenclature already 1735 in 
his Systema Naturae. 
??) Linnaeus applied his rules of | 
|! ward 
Rev. Prof. Ed- 
15. August 1892. | 
,Pittonia* 1I 
Greene in his 
p. 268—275: 
Mr. Jaekson eritieizes Dr. Kuntze, not as 
| do others at Kew, for his vindication of the 
principle of priority, but as having taken 
*the date of issue of Linnaeus! first edition 
| of the Systema Naturae, 1735, as his arbitrary 
| starting-point." But no longer ago than 1887, 
Mr. Jaekson himself announced that in his 
own revising of genera for the Index of Plant 
Names, he had taken the same work and date 
as his point from which to reckon priorities. 
"Our starting point, then", he tells us, *'is 
| the publieation of Linnaeus of the Systema 
| 
| 
] 
| 
Naturae, 1735" *). "There is a notable diffe- 
renee between Mr. Jackson's statement of his 
own ease here, and his statement of that of 
Dr. Kuntze. He makes the Systema starting- 
point to have been taken by Dr. Kuntze 
"arbitrarily", while against his own taking 
up of the same point of departure he made 
no such aceusation; and we can but wonder, 
and wish that we knew what Mr. Jackson's 
doetrine is, Could he name a starting-point 
whieh he would not consider arbitrarily cho- 
sen? He seems to hold the opinion still that 
there must be a starting-point, and even that 
1753 is the proper date. But is this an *ar- 
bitrary" point of departure, or does he judge 
it to have been deeided upon by some autho- 
rity? Would he have blamed Dr. Kuntze, for 
instance, as taking his starting-point arbitrarily, 
in ease he had made 1753 his date? What 
was the chain of cireumstances—the category 
of experiences, by which Mr. Jackson was 
induced to relinquish the 1735 date in favor 
of that of 1753? Did he, after working on 
that basis for six or seven years**), find the 
extraordinary amount of bibliographieal  re- 
search entailed by reckoning from the earlier 
date, an insuperable obstacle to his ever finish- 
ing the Index of Plant Names? Some sort of 
| an explanation—perhaps amounting to an affir- 
mative answer of my last question—is given 
by Mr. Hemsley, as if on Mr. Jackson's 
behalf, when he says: "It is no breach of 
confidenee to say that Mr. Davdon Jackson, 
who has-been engaged ten years on Darwin's 
Index to Plant Names, has come to the con. 
*) Journal of Botany, xxv. 68. 
Five years had already been devoted to 
the work when, in 1887, the *1735" an- 
nouncement was made, 
