317 
under such circumstances to imagine what the condition of things 
would be were this to go on for several generations. If this ist 
was as complete and general as that of the Ornithologists’ Union 
adopted in 1886, there is no reason to suppose that the result in 
botany may not be practically the same as it has proved to be in 
ornithology, and that with the publication of this one last set of 
changes,'which would be simply a serious attempt to actually find 
what the true names of our plants are, the long continued process 
of bandying these plants about from one name to another must 
cease and each plant would have at last found its true and per- 
manent resting place. 
To illustrate in botany as has been done in ornithology we 
may take several of the editions of Gray’s Manual, Sereno Wat- 
son’s Bibliographical Index and Gray’s Synoptical Flora, and 
make a few comparisons to show the fluctuations that species of 
American plants have undergone. (See opposite table.) 
These are only a few samples taken almost at random of the 
extensive changes that were made at the different dates given. 
To mention my own personal experience, I began with the fourth 
edition of Gray’s Manual only a short time before the appearance 
of the fifth, yet long enough for me to have wasted many precious 
hours in memorizing names destined to be changed. And then 
came the Bibliographical Index for the Polypetalae, introducing 
large numbers of other changes, followed by the Synoptical Flora, 
Carrying the work into the Gamopetalae. The sixth edition of 
Gray’s Manual edited by Mr. Watson often differs from any of 
the preceding, showing that the general work of wholesale alter- 
ation was still going on. Many botanists supposed, as I did at 
first myself, that all this was necessary and often the authors 
stated that the reasons for their changes were because the names 
formerly published were not the original names, thus directly ap- 
pealing to the law of priority and defending themselves under this 
law, but a general glance at the whole affair shows there never 
was really any systematic attempt to base these changes upon any 
permanent and consistent scientific principles, but that to a large 
extent it was left to the individual judgment of the author at the 
particular time at which he was writing. The utter chaos into 
which this system has thrown the science of botany is the real 
cause of a movement for a stable nomenclature. 
