VII 



this method seems to us to be better than any other but, as it is, it is 

 so generally adopted by mycologists and furthermore, since it was 

 voted by the botanists at the recent Congress in Vienna that 

 this plan should be followed in Spermaphytes it seems desirable 

 that all botanists should conform to it. We do not, however, pro- 

 pose in adopting this system to follow it blindly, but in all cases 

 we would accept an older name only when it is quite plain, and not 

 merely possible, or somewhat probable, that the species described 

 by an older writer was the same as that which is generally known 

 under another more recent and more certain name. We have no 

 scruples in declining to accept many of the names of older writers 

 which have of late been substituted for more modern names since 

 from the vagueness of the descriptions and the crudeness of the 

 illustrations it is impossible in the absence of original specimens to 

 be sure that the species were the same as those to which they have 

 since been applied. 



There are two categories of botanists : those who believe that 

 nomenclature is an end rather than a means, to whom the changing 

 of names to adapt them to a uniform, automatic system seems to 

 be the important aim in science ; and those who regard nomencla- 

 ture as a necessary evil which can be mitigated by making as few 

 changes as possible. Of these two categories, it is hardly necessary 

 to say that we should prefer to be classed with the latter. Great as 

 is the difficulty of recognizing the identity of the species of early 

 writers in the case of Spermaphytes, it is still worse in the case of 

 fungi, if we accept 1753 as the limit, for the early writers did not 

 make use of the microscopical characters now considered necessary 

 and we must confess that we feel that too much value should not be 

 placed on original specimens of species in which the microscopic 

 characters are important. It has happened in several cases that 

 those who have examined original specimens of certain of the smaller 

 Schweinitzian species do not agree as to their structure, for which the 

 most probable reason is that Schweinitz, not using microscopic 

 characters, did not distinguish between different species of the same 

 general appearance. Such species we have relegated to the limbo 

 of species ignotce since we have felt under no moral obligation to make 

 it appear that Schweinitz recognized distinctions which he certainly 

 did not recognize. It is best not to make too violent attempts to in- 

 terpret the older mycologists but to be content with letting the dead 



