THE PLANT WOELD 59 



of the Garden, was published in the journal of that institution for 

 March. It will be republished in full in our April issue, and we hope 

 at that time to submit to our readers a plan embodying Dr. Knowlton's 

 suggestions. The Plant World Company. 



There is no adjective more abused than " popular," in so far as its 

 application to science is concerned ; and the varied opinions as to what 

 constitutes " popular " botany, as exemplified in print, are often very 

 amusing. In its proper sense, as we often have occasion to point out 

 in these columns, the phrase really means a presentation of botanical 

 facts in language that can be understood by everyone ; but it also means 

 a selection of such facts as are of public interest. Thus an article on 

 the subject of plant names and how they come to be applied is dis- 

 tinctly a popular subject, if well treated ; but a dissertation on nomen- 

 clature, involving technical questions of priority, etc., while no less sci- 

 entific, has no place in the columns of a journal of popular botany. On 

 the other hand, if we are obliged to mention any considerable number 

 of plants, it is always better to refer to them by their Latin names ; for 

 in many cases they have no others, and if the reader is uncertain as to 

 their identity, he can easily refer to one of our manuals. 



These remarks have been suggested by observing the space given 

 in one of our journals of " popular " botany to tedious homilies on the 

 subject of nomenclature, priority, the Rochester code, and similar top- 

 ics, which must be quite incomprehensible to many of its readers. A 

 book from the same source, also laying claim to "popularity," contains 

 under nearly every species described a statement of the author's rea- 

 sons for differing with his fellow-botanists in the names he adopts. 



The pages of The Plant World have never been used for the 

 exploitation of the views of any school of nomenclature, although we 

 have several times been asked to publish contributions on this subject. 

 We strive to procure, first of all, matter of interest to our constituents, 

 "w^ho are not interested, we are sure, in technical scientific squabbles ; 

 and the nomenclature of every article appearing in The Plant World 

 is exactly what the author chooses to make it. 



