Cheeseman. — Botanical Nomenclature. 463 



the last ten years, particularly among a section of American 

 botanists. 



Recommendations 34 and 35, placed with some others in the 

 appendix, suggest that the metric system only should be used 

 in botany for reckoning weights and measures, &c. I am 

 certainly of opinion that all measurements given in the Latin 

 diagnosis, which is now imperative when a new species is 

 described, should conform to this rule ; and it might also be 

 reasonably adopted in memoirs or communications prepared 

 mainly for the use of professional botanists. But it is open to 

 discussion whether the metric system should displace the system 

 of measurement adopted in any country in the case of floras or 

 other works written in the vernacular of that country, and 

 intended for general use. After all, the convenience of the 

 majority is the point to be considered. 



In the above remarks on the results of tbe Vienna Congress 

 I have, for the sake of brevity, passed over several rules which 

 are of considerable interest and value to the working botanist. 

 My principal object has been to draw attention to those rules 

 which, if they are adopted and acted upon by botanists gene- 

 rally, may be expected to relieve the intolerable state of un- 

 certainty into which botanical nomenclature has drifted during 

 the last twenty-five years. The work of the Congress, as a 

 whole, gives evidence of steady progress towards a stable nomen- 

 clature, and it is in every way desirable that the rules should 

 have a fair trial. They have been fully and carefully discussed 

 by a body specially summoned for the purpose, and are framed 

 in moderate and reasonable terms. I think it can be said 

 that they constitute a sincere and honest attempt to settle 

 the many differences of opinion which of late years have 

 wasted and divided th'e energies of systematic botanists, so 

 far as matters of nomenclature are concerned. No doubt, to 

 arrive at a permanent settlement will demand much forbear- 

 ance, and necessitate the subordination of individual inclina- 

 tions to the decision of the majority ; but, on the other hand, 

 the advantages to be gained from the establishment of a stable 

 system of nomenclature are incalculable. 



It may be asked what changes in the nomenclature of New 

 Zealand plants will be caused by the new rules. To this I 

 would reply that they are comparatively few. So far as the 

 genera are concerned, the list of " Nomina Conservanda " 

 appended to the rules shuts out most of the alterations pro- 

 posed by Dr. Kuntze and his followers. With respect to the 

 species, the majority of the changes will be due to the adoption 

 of the rule that in all cases the earliest specific epithet must be 

 maintained. Names like Haloragis alata and Ipomcea biloba, 



