16 Recent Literature. =: [SOR 
On Jooking up the reference in Salm-Dyck, it is found to be 
“Tem, Cact. gen nov. p. 5,’’ whereas it should be Lem. Cact. 
aliq. nov. 5, an earlier work by the-same author. 
Quite a number of names have perhaps by accident been 
omitted from the work. Among them are the following new 
ones by Prof. Coulter: Cactus alternatus, brunneus, capillarts, 
densispinus, Eschanziert, maculatus, Palmeri, Pringlet, radians- 
pectenotdes. 
The most objectionable feature of the monograph is the refer- 
ence of a considerable number of new names to ephemeral trade 
catalogues, of which in most cases no number or page is cited. 
For example: ‘‘Mamillaria Trohartii Hildm. cat.’’, locality 
‘‘Mexico’’, flower and fruit ‘‘unknown’’; ‘‘J/amillaria gigantea 
Hildm. cat.’’; synonyms—‘‘J/. McDowellii Hildm. cat. J. 
Guanajuatensis Runge cat.’? These references are mostly to 
names only, sometimes with a brief unscientific notice, and are 
as a rule inaccessible to students, not being offered for sale but 
issued yearly to the trade as a list from which customers may 
order plants. Fortunately the English and American catalogues 
are entirely ignored. 
Pittonia, vol. iv., Pt. 22, pp. 105-158. In the first paper Prof. 
Greene falls upon Prof. Underwood for stating the fact that 
‘“‘Necker’s fern genera [Necker calls them species] are not based 
on types and no earlier references are cited.’’ This is true of all 
his other ‘‘species’’, and while it is undeniably true that most of 
them may be picked out by a process of exclusion, it is also true 
that there is a growing number of botanists who wish to have 
some portion of their time for investigations which shall add to 
the sum of knowledge rather than to waste the whole of it in 
profitless researches into nearly forgotten works, from which 
about the only good to be derived is a possible change of name. 
The present system of change from the plain and well-known to 
the obscure and vague, is fast driving botanists towards an inter- 
national commission and deposit of all new types in national 
museums. ‘The remainder of the number is taken up with 
‘‘decades’’ and ‘‘fascicles’’ of new species, forerunners, perhaps, of 
centuries and myriads. 
