378 Systematic Botany. [zoE 



ness which it now sadly lacks, and an impetus which would 

 result in the speedy settlement of the classification of our flora. 



The most crying need of to-day is a rule that no species shall 

 be considered as published if it has a string of words attached to 

 it which do not describe the species so that it can be recognized 

 without the use of the type specimen. It is true that this would 

 invalidate the names of almost half of our flora if it were made 

 an ex post facto rule, but we need not do that; we can forgive the 

 good old men who have passed away, but we should expec^ 

 better things of the living. Among the faults in describing 

 species there is no one more common than sawing the air with 

 descriptions. Take Astragalus for example, allied species, one is 

 described as "matted, pod inflated, flowers white, calyx long, 

 stipules connate, leaflets 10-15 pairs." Another is described 

 as "stems many; pod hoary, 2-celled, pointed; flowers large, 

 keel blunt; calyx hyaline with teeth as long as tube; stipules 

 lanceolate and acute; leaflets glabrous, obovate, acute." The 

 person who makes such a description which would apply equally 

 to either species thinks he has described his plant, when in fact it 

 is only an aggregation of words with no meaning. If a person 

 does the best he knows how he is then liable to miss some things 

 of importance, but when he starts out to give a " short and 

 concise " description and throws in a pinch of words and calls it 

 a description, he feels aggrieved if he is called to account, and 

 tries to insinuate that his critic has some personal motive for his 

 " unjust attack! " When all the species are known it is 

 perfectly right to omit all things of no importance, but when 

 they are not all known and their importance misunderstood 

 there is no botanist either with inherited or acquired acumen 

 who can tell what are essential and what non- essential char- 

 acters, and it is pure pedantry to assume it. 



Another innovation in nomenclature which I think should 

 not be overlooked is the crediting of species to men who were 

 not their authors. I do not know who first promulgated it, but 

 it is in the line so much cultivated of late, of ignoring and under- 

 estimating the work of field botanists. One would think the way 

 things are going that the only persons who have any rights are 

 the people who sit in their warm and cozy herbaria and manu- 



