6 SPECIES BLANCOANAE 
by other authors is a natural corollary of the general acceptance 
of the principle of priority in the selection of the names of 
species where synonymy is involved. The matter has already 
been discussed by me in connection with my detailed study 
of the species described in Rumphius’s Herbarium Amboinense,? 
from which the following passage (p. 43) is quoted: 
Up to the close of the last century comparatively little attention was 
given to the question of priority in the names of plants, and many authors 
accepted or changed generic and specific names at will. It is true that in 
a majority of cases names well established were generally accepted, but 
changes were often made for the most trivial reasons. In work prosecuted 
under these lax but easy methods of selecting names for plants, the exact 
identity of obscure species was a matter of relatively slight importance. 
With the establishment and general acceptance of the principle of prior- 
ity in selecting the name of species, it has become important, from the view 
point of stability of nomenclature, to determine so far as possible the exact 
status of the species described by older authors. It would admittedly be 
convenient if many of the names proposed by early authors could be dis- 
carded, but if we ignore a species of one author, any botanist at any time 
would be justified in likewise ignoring species proposed by any other 
author, which would result in a veritable chaotic condition in nomenclature. 
We can no longer look on the work of this or that author, no matter how 
incomplete or imperfect, as unworthy of consideration, nor can we accept 
Hooker’s dictum regarding species proposed by such authors as Blanco, 
that it was undesirable to devote time to their identification. 
E. D. MERRILL. 
MANILA, P. I., June 15, 1917. 
* Merrill, E. D. An interpretation of Rumphius’s Herbarium Amboi- 
nense. Bureau of Science, Manila (1917) 1-595. 
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