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The botanical world has submitted to frequent changes like those 
we have known in the past fifty years with very little remonstrance 
compared to the great annoyance which they produce. In this work 
a new set of changes is thrust upon us, some of them very great 
and calculated to appeal strongly to our sense of veneration for 
the older names which we have so long known, and it is not to 
be wondered at that those who do not understand that there is 
any difference between this movement and the long series of 
changes that have been introduced in times gone by, in the differ- 
ent editions of our manuals and the new botanical works that 
have appeared, should strongly resent this last proposition to com- 
pel us to memorize a new set of names. In America the princi- 
pal reasons for submitting as tranquilly as botanists have done to 
the changes that have been imposed has chiefly been the great re- 
spect in which all American botanists have held the authors of 
these books. In the case of Dr. Asa Gray that respect amounted 
in avery large number of cases to something more—to a real 
sentiment of personal affection; but this condition of things no 
longer exists. The argument at best was an unsound one, but 
one which was nevertheless effective. At the present time botan- 
ists must be convinced that any wholesale changes that are to be 
introduced in the botanical nomenclature of America are made 
for good reasons. 
But, on the other hand, there is now far greater necessity for 
the adoption of some fundamental rules of nomenclature than 
have heretofore existed. Formerly there was one high seat from 
which the botanical decrees emanated, and there was far less dan- 
ger that unreasonable things would be done by one or two per- 
sous than by many. At the present time there are large numbers 
of botanical centres, and if matters are to be left to the individual 
judgment of publishing botanists, there will be no comparing the 
confusion that is in store for us with that which we have had in 
the past. Heretofore we have only had the differences which one 
man or one class of men in close codperation thought best to in- 
troduce at different periods in their own work. Now we shall 
not only have the changes that each individual is likely to make 
at different dates, but as many differences as there are different 
sources from which our works are to emanate. It is difficult 
