THE PLANT WORLD 41 



Editorial. 



With the completiou of Mr. Pollard's work on the ' ' Families of 

 Flowering^ Plants, ' ' which we have printed in serial form as a supplement 

 to this journal during the past three years, there have come to us numer- 

 ous requests for the book as a separate bound volume. W^e have about 

 one hundred and fifty sets of the supplement, and our first intention was 

 to offer this stock for sale at once. But owing to the difiiculties experi- 

 enced with incompetent printers, the pagination, chapter headings, etc., 

 of the brochures contain many errors, and they are printed on two differ- 

 ent grades of paper. We have therefore decided to sell no copies what- 

 ever of the present supplement. Instead we shall have the edition neatly 

 bound in paper, and will offer one copy free to ever}^ one raising a club 

 of five new subscribers, in addition to the regular agent's commission 

 of twenty per cent on each subscription. These copies will be ready 

 about March 15. In the meantime it is Mr. Pollard's intention to thor- 

 oughly revise the supplement, to insert additional matter and new illus- 

 trations wherever necessary, and to publish the book during the coming 

 year. 



Pursuing further the subject of popular plant names, we reprint here- 

 with the letter to which we referred in the January issue of The Plant 

 World, sent to us by the Chairman of the Nomenclature Committee of 

 the Botanical Club, American Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence. The writer's name is withheld. 



Washington, D. C, Dec. 14, 1902. 

 Prof. N. L. Britton, 



Dear Sir : Pardon me, a stranger, for addressing you, but I hope the 

 nature of my message will justify me. I know not to whom I could 

 more appropriately write on this matter. 



I, for one, desire a single English name for each plant for use among 

 English-speaking people throughout the United States . You have already 

 set a good example, so far as circumstances w^ould permit. What we 

 want now is a committee appointed by some national botanical authorit3^ 

 say here in Washington this month, to eliminate all the English or 

 vernacular names but one for each plant, so that when asked by a 

 non-botanist what a given plant is we could, like the ornithologists, give 

 confidently and definitely its single name, adding, when there is occasion 

 or opportunity, that it is known hy other names in other localities, but 

 " the botanists have concluded to adopt this one to the exclusion of all 

 others for all the United States," or words to this effect. This would be 

 more satisfactory to both the inquirer and the instructor, and would do a 

 little, I think, in the direction of " popularizing science, " which has been 

 my specialty (" hobby ") for the last forty years. 



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