ENUMERATION OF PHILIPPINE LEGUMINOSAE. 3 
In the above list the 18 retained names given in the first column would 
‘be displaced by the older ones, given in the second column, were the 
principles of priority to be applied without reservation. The author 
does not personally approve of all the retained generic names, and it is 
believed that in a number of cases better results would have been secured 
had the list been made up with more discretion. The list will not bear 
close inspection without showing its deficiencies, both in names included, 
and in those omitted. The method by which these names were selected 
appears to have been purely arbitrary, with little or no consideration of 
the facts in the individual cases, and it is believed that, granting a list 
of nomina conservanda to be expedient and necessary, better results would 
have been secured, had a proposed list been adopted by the Vienna Con- 
gress, for definite acceptance or rejection at the next International 
Botanical Congress, thus giving opportunity for some discussion of the 
proposed names, arguments for and against the adoption of certain ones, 
and opportunity to propose additions to the list. 
In the Leguminosae of the Philippines alone, similar action should 
have been taken in the case of several genera, in order to have made the 
list of nomina conservanda consistent. Hntada Adans. (1763), should 
have been retained instead of Pursaetha L. (1747), Gigalobium P. Br. 
(1756), or Lens Stickm. (1754); Sesbania Scop. (1777), instead of 
Sesban Adans., or Agati Adans. (1763); Sindora Miq. (1860), instead 
of Galedupa Lam. (1786); and possibly also Dalea L. (1737), instead 
of Parosela Cav. (1802), although the last case is complicated by synon- 
ymy and homonymy. If, as in the list of nomina conservanda, Clianthus 
be given preference to Donia, then for the sake of consistency, Atylosia 
should have been retained in place of Cantharospermum, yet on the one 
hand Clanthus is given preference to Donia, and on the other Cantharos- 
permum is preferred to Atylosia, although in both cases there is only 
page priority, and in the last case Atylosia is certainly the more generally 
used name. | 
In the following consideration generic limits as defined by Bentham 
in the “Genera Plantarum,” and by Taubert in Engler and Prantl’s “Die 
natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien” have been followed, and the sequence of 
genera followed is that of the latter work. In studying the Philippine 
material, as well as the extra-Philippine plants in this herbarium, I have 
been impressed with the inequality in the treatment of genera by the 
above authors. Especially in the Paptlionatae one finds genera separated 
by exceedingly slight and often obscure characters, as with Dunbaria and 
Cantharospermum, Vigna and Phaseolus, and, as some authors propose, 
the separation of Lablab from Dolichos as a distinct genus. In the cases 
just cited, the characters considered worthy of being the bases of generic 
distinctions, are certainly not as strong, nor as well defined, as are those 
by which various sections or subgenera of Caesalpinia, Cassia, Bauhinia, 
