7S THE PLANT WORLD. 



accepted designation. Yet now and then appeared an author who 

 preferred one of the more or less unfamiliar synonyms for a species, 

 and some confusion was the result. 



It was at this point that the differences of opinion arose between 

 the two so-called schools of botanists. The conservative element 

 argue that a name which has been accepted for a long time — say for 

 fifty years — and is woven into the literature of the science in hundreds 

 of places, is good enough and should not be displaced. A name is 

 only a convenient handle for a plant and not an essential part of it, 

 and it is not worth while to be changing it. Moreover it is held that 

 to change a long accepted name is to obscure its history. It may be 

 a plant, the name of which has become very familiar to the public, 

 and a change under such circumstances would be nearly equivalent to 

 its destruction, at least until the new name became familiar. 



On the other hand the radical or reform element claim that there 

 can be no stability of names until we go back to the very first name 

 that was given each plant after the introduction of binomials, that is 

 after the year 1753. This was the starting point, and it is claimed 

 that a plant must bear the earliest name that was given it after this 

 date. It is admitted that it is unfortunate and often perplexing to 

 change familiar names, but when once done thoroughly it is held to be 

 done for all time. 



The users of current manuals of botany may know that if they find 

 no changes in familiar names the author of that book is a conservative 

 in nomenclature, but if there are many strange names for familiar 

 plants they may be assured that the book has been written by an ad- 

 herent to the law of priority. 



NOTES A/1D NEWS. 



Mr. T. L. Hankinson, of the Michigan Agricultural College, re- 

 ports having killed a ruffed grouse in the early part of September, 

 which had attached to the feathers of various parts of the body more 

 than fifty nutlets of the Stick-Seed [Echinosperinuju Virginiciini or 

 Lappula Virginiana). This shows how widely the seeds of plants may 

 be distributed by animals. 



"The railroads of this country are annually consuming 90,000,000 

 ties, requiring the cutting of 45,000,000 trees on the assumption that 

 an average of two ties may be had from one tree. Fifteen trees to the 

 acre suitable for making ties would be a full estimate, so that it will 

 require the culling of 3,000,000 acres a year to supply this demand." — 

 J. B. Killebrew, Ph. D., in " The Forests of Tennessee." 



