235 



r 





Section II. of the agreement is really extraneous, but the 

 movement to reinstate certain wrongfully suppressed genera has by 

 chance gone hand in hand with the movement to maintain original 

 trivial names, and as both reforms are governed by the same 

 general principle of priority, it has seemed best to embrace them 

 both in otiQ agreement. The signer accepts the substitution of 

 Castaha for Nympkcea, Belamcanda for Pardanthus, and some 

 other like changes, imperatively demanded of us as simple acts 

 of historic justice, 



A third phase of the new movement in nomenclature is the 

 citation in parenthesis of the author of the trivial name, whenever 

 the name as a whole belongs to some one else. Under this system 

 Moneses grandtflora, Salisb., implies that Salisbury is the author 

 of the specific name and also of the binomial. Moneses unijlora^ 

 (L.), Gray, assigns to Gray the authorship of the name as a whole, 



butg 



ifli 



to the plant. This mode of citing authorities is simple enough ; 

 It IS preeminently just; and it adds to the history of the name a 

 feature of special moment, now that the trivial appellation is 

 9-ssuming new importance as a key to nomenclature. It is wholly 

 incidental, however, to the main question of enforcing the law of 

 priority, and, if incorporated at all in the agreement, should be 

 introduced in a subsidiary way for separate signature by such 

 botanists as may choose to adopt it. 



This somewhat discursive statement of the nomenclature 

 question may be fitly concluded with the observation that the 

 only way to settle it is to organize a league of the supporters of 

 c new movement, and a counter league of its opponents (if any): 

 let each party formulate its doctrine precisely, apply it strictly 

 and defend it boldly, and in due time the right side will convert 

 and absorb all its antagonists and hold undisputed possession of 



the field. E. E. Sterns. 



th 



^Itar of the law of priority— not a flexible law, to be varied now and again to suit 

 ^dividual tastes, bnt'a stern, unyielding, absolute one— in short, a standard law— 

 to be literally and unflinchingly obeyed. Surely it is not too mucb to hope that 

 t^e friends of the revised nomenclature, both East and West, will vie with each 

 other in the strictest possible maintenance of this law, from which so much is hoped, 

 even at the occasional expense of cherished personal predilections. 



