THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 29 



days toward agreement and unification, the persisting varia- 

 tions being mostly in minor matters. As soon, however, as any 

 superimposed authority undertakes to enforce rigiditv, rebel- 

 lion is invited and the differences are likely to be organized 

 into counter codifications. It is probably not even desirable 

 to have regidity in binomial nomenclature for plants. The re- 

 actionary nature of the rules is their greatest fault, however, 

 and is responsible for most of the mischief. It upsets good 

 practice on which the literature rests even as far back as 

 Linnaeus. Acts of legislatures, regulations of government, 

 ordinances, entrance requirements to colleges, and other enact- 

 ments become operative at a specified future date. The names 

 of plants are vested rights to the users of them in literature, 

 and there is no moral warrant for the changing of those names 

 of times past merely that they may conform to a rule of the 

 present. If the practice were in the realms of enacted law 

 involving property, any court would declare it illegal. — From 

 an Article by L. H. Bailey in Science. 



An Argument for Prohibition. — Truth adds charm to 

 a story, lifting it above the commonplace and creating an 

 interest which is lacking in "just a story". A recent experience 

 of the writer makes an interesting tale which has the added 

 strength of truth. As a member of one of the experiment 

 station staffs, the writer recently received a number of boom- 

 erang-shaped, black, seed-like bodies, with the request that 

 these "seeds" be identified. The sender explained that he had 

 obtained the material from a load of rye which had been sent 

 to a local whisky distillery, and since he did not wish to see any 

 new weeds introduced into the locality, he desired that the 

 specimens be identified. The so-called "seeds", however, 

 proved to be a fungus called ergot, noted because of its poison- 

 ous principle which has been known to prove fatal to man and 

 is dangerous to animals so unfortunate as to eat infected plants. 

 The writer immediately informed his correspondent of the dan- 



