48 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN. 



About three-fourths of the ferns were determined by- 

 Mrs. Maud Wislizenus. 



Following the catalogue is a tabulated list of the plants 

 collected in the Bahamas, from which it will be seen that 

 the Bahaman flora has come from the South and not from 

 the United States. 



Dr. Eothrock kindly placed his collection at my disposal, 

 and a few species and localities, indicated by the letter 

 (R), were thereby added. It has also been possible to in- 

 clude in the list a small collection made at Porus, Jamaica, 

 by Mr. C. G. Lloyd, in January, 1892. 



Since the introduction of the binomial system of nomen- 

 clature by Linnasus, the name of a plant has consisted of 

 two parts, the first, or generic, to show its position in the 

 classification of the vegetable kingdom, the second, or 

 specific, to distinguish it from others of the same genus. 

 One of the advantages of a system of nomenclature is the 

 certainty with which a given plant can be indicated, and 

 hence it becomes more useful as it is more uniform, and it 

 is only by the concerted action of botanists that uniformity 

 can be obtained. Two ways by which this can be accom- 

 plished are by following an authority, or set of authorities, 

 or by establishing a system of botanical nomenclature. 

 Probably the greatest difficulty Avith the first method is 

 that one man can know sufficiently well to be called an 

 authority, only a limited flora or a limited portion of the 

 vegetable kingdom, and when his work is to be incorpo- 

 rated with that of others many difficulties arise. Or his 

 successors may wish to establish names of their own. We 

 see how the names of Walter and Michaux were discarded 

 by Persoon, and how few of Rafinesque's names were 

 adopted by his successors. 



But it is now quite generally conceded that we must look 

 to the second method for stability. The first step in this 

 direction was the adoption of the law of priority. But 

 from this point opinions diverge; some saying that we 

 should commence to apply the law, at the date of Linnaeus' 



