THE AMERICAN BOTAXTST. 47 



a parcel from Chicago to Berlin, Germany, than it does to send 

 it from Chicag'o to New York. The establishment of a do- 

 mestic parcels post would mean reduced rates on botanical 

 specimens sent in exchange and a reduction on the cost of 

 such bulbs, seeds and plants as you may wish to purchase 

 from the florist and nurseryman. Very little except good 

 can result from an American parcels post, and we hope our 

 subscribers will talk and vote parcels post until we get it. 



* * * 



As 1908 approaches, increasing uneasiness is being mani- 

 fested by American botanists at the prospect of being obliged 

 to describe all new species in Latin after that date as agreed 

 at the Vienna International Botanical Congress. Of course 

 only those are complaining who failed to become intimately 

 acquainted with Caesar, Cicero, and the rest of the old Romans 

 of their school days. Some are strongly insisting that as we 

 are an English-speaking nation, able to look after our own 

 flora, there is no need for us to obey this new rule, quite for- 

 getting that if this is true, the Japanese. Russians and Persians 

 have just as much right to describe their new species in their 

 own language, much of which looks in print as if it were a 

 cross between the alphabet and the multiplication table and is 

 just about as decipherable as the label on a pack of fire- 

 crackers. No, let us have the Latin and then even these En- 

 glish-speaking, species-making, name-tinkering nomenclaturists 

 will have to learn but one extra language in order to keep in 

 the game. To most of us. whether we know anything more 

 than dog-latin or not. the prospect of trading off French, 

 German. Hungarian, Norwegian and Italian plant descriptions 

 for descriptions uniformly in Latin, is quite attractive. Nor 

 can we feel much sympathy for the scientists who for nearly 

 a generation have confused and confounded us with the pro- 

 teus-like changes of their "stable nomenclature." They may 

 now get a taste of their own medicine. 



