VOL. III.] Lett 67' from Alphonse de CandoUe. 253 



Hymenoriis macer QdA^y . Common at Poway, San Diego County, 

 under debris, beneath trees and about decaying vegetables. 



Isomira variabilis Horn. Moderately common at Poway during 

 June and July on the blossoms of Adenostoma fasciculatiwi. 



Cistela Thevefietii Horn. Moderately rare at Poway. Frequents 

 the blossoms of Adenostoiiia fasciciilatum. Color piceous-black to 

 black, femora red. 



LETTER FROM M. ALPHONSE DE CANDOLLE TO M. 



ERNEST MALINVAUD.* 



Geneva, July 6, 1892. 

 Dear Sir and Fellow Member: 



You wish to know my opinion regarding the propositions issued 

 by a committee of very competent botanists in Berlin, on the sub- 

 ject of nomenclature. I have signed the four articles which they 

 propose, and I will tell you why. 



In 1867, when we revised the collection of laws of nomenclature, 

 we made omissions and committed several errors, which the march 

 of science has now made obvious. We then thought almost exclu- 

 sively of the future, scarcely at all of the first epoch in binominal 

 nomenclature. We particularly said that it should start from 

 Linnaeus, without explaining from which of his works. But be- 

 tween the first edition of the Systema Naturae (1735) and the au- 

 thor's last dissertation, published in 1776, a period of forty-one 

 years elapsed, and during this long time his principal works were 

 spread abroad (Genera, Species, Mantissa, etc.). At the same 

 time descriptions of genera and species were published which are 

 or are not sound, according as the nomenclature is based on this or 

 that work of the master. 



It is sufficient to cast a glance at the first folio edition of the Sys- 

 tema, now very rare, to be convinced that it is intended to make 

 known Linnaeus' twenty-four classes and not at all to define genera. 

 It was in 1737, in the first edition of the Genera, that the author 

 named and characterized the genera which he admitted. In 1753, 

 in the first edition of the Species, he enumerated species under the 

 binominal form. Not long since I was disposed to determine gen- 



* Translated by Mary F. McRoberts, from the Bulletin of the Botanical Society 

 of France, Vol. 39, meeting of July 8, 1892. 



