300 Robinson: Further Notes ox the Agrimonies 



amine more carefully the factors which enter into an ultimate set- 

 tlement of that matter. Our nomenclature includes three very 

 important classes of names, generic, specific, and varietal.* The 

 first two have without objection or serious inconvenience been 



* 



maintained as independent groups of names. A similar treatment 

 of the second and third groups, which stand to each other in 

 a somewhat similar relation, will I am confident, greatly simplify 

 the whole problem of botanical nomenclature. There are several 

 reasons for this. In the first place each category is already so 

 large that the problem of determining the validity of a particular 

 name in one would obviously be much simplified by excluding from 

 competition the names in the other. In the second place varietal 

 names have from the earliest times been used with greater laxity 

 and diversity of method, not to say carelessness, than have specific 

 names. This, however, is by no means all, the variety has been 

 given, in general, only a very brief and comparative description, 

 which is often intelligible only on the assumption that the plant in 

 question is really a variety of the species to which it is attached. 

 Varietal names as well as varietal descriptions are in many instances 

 comparative and when separated from their original species may 

 become not only ludicrously inapplicable to independent species 

 but positively misleading when so applied. Precedence of the 

 earlier varietal name may, perhaps, be a desirable principle in sys- 

 tematic zoology. But the chief difficulty in admitting the varietal 

 name into full competition with the specific in botany is one which 

 is likely from lack of parallel to be underrated by our zoological 

 colleagues, namely the difficulty arising from the vast array of un- 

 classified, unindexed, and ill-described horticultural varieties. To 

 say that these are not botanical is quite idle. No one can possibly 

 place a limit between botanical and horticultural varieties nor be- 

 tween botanical and horticultural descriptions. Already a tend- 

 ency has in some quarters been manifested to change valid botan- 

 ical names owing to the existence of purely horticultural homo- 

 nyms. Why should we adopt rules which will so greatly increase 

 the difficulty of the already intricate problem of nomenclature ? 



Gray Herbarium. 



* The categories of subspecies, variety, subvariety, and form are so closely connected 

 that they may as to nomenclature practically pass as one since they have been used more 

 or less interchangeably and have not been very successfully differentiated. 



