814 FINAL JOURNEYS AND WORK. [1887, 



a wrong genus, should supersede by its specific half a 

 well-authenticated and legitimate name. And I am 

 sure that you will not take it amiss when I say that 

 very long experience has made it clear to me that 

 this business of determining rightful names is not so 

 simple and mechanical as to younger botanists it 

 seems to be, but is very full of pitfalls. I trust it is 

 no personal feeling which suggests the advice that it 

 is better to leave such rectifications for monographs 

 and comprehensive works, or at least to make quite 

 sure of the ground. 



We look to you and to such as yourself, placed at 

 well-furnished botanical centres, to do your share of 

 conscientious work and to support right doctrines. So 

 I may proceed to say that, upon the recognized princi- 

 ples since the adoption of the Candollian code, your 

 name of Conioselinum bipinnatum, even if founded 

 in fact, would be inadmissible and superfluous. By 

 a corollary of the rule that priority of publication 

 fixes the name, taken along with the fact a plant-name 

 is of two parts, generic and specific, it follows that in 

 any case, Conioselinum Canadense is the prior name 

 for those who hold to the genus Conioselinum. I 

 have laid down what I take to be the correct view as 

 to this, in my " Structural Botany," paragraph 794, 

 where it is supported by the high authority of Ben- 

 tham. I believe it is more and more acceded to by 

 the most competent judges. There are those who 

 make transpositions of divorced halves of plants 

 name, and who, also make the law of priority mechan- 

 ically override other equally valid laws, without re- 

 gard to sense. To such the old law maxim of the 

 elder De Candolle was applied ; summum jus, summa 

 injuria. If you like to adopt their ideas, you have at 



