114 _ BOTANICON SINICUM. 
his supposition, and my own impression has always been that the 
genus Orobanche in the Pekin Flora is represented by bid 
species only: one scentless blue-flowered, and one fragrant with 
white flowers and yellow filaments and anthers. 
In 1866 Dr. Hance described in the Ann. sc. nat. Advers. p. 18 
(see also Journ. of Botany 1869, 295) Sambucus Williamsii as a 
new species gathered in the neighbourhood of Peking by Dr. 
Wells Williams. ‘The inflorescence arranged in a lax compound 
corymbe is given as characteristic. I myself gathered a number 
of specimens of a Sambucus growing at the same place. Maxi- 
mowiez declared it to be S. racemosa L., which is frequent 
in the Peking plain and in the mountains. See also Bee. Enum. 
Chin. bor. No. 193. The inflorescence of this species (generally 
described as an ovoid panicle) varies in shape at Peking. On 
younger plants (rarely seen in flower and distinguished by larger 
leaflets) the panicle does not develop so well as on old specimens 
(small trees). Although I have not seen Dr. Williams’ original 
specimen, I have little doubt that it was taken from a young 
plant of S. racemosa. Dr. Hance has hardly examined a great 
number of specimens of his 8. Williamsii. 
A great obstacle in the way of utilizing the results of modern 
botanical research is the tendency observable among the majority 
of botanists of our days to multiply unreasonably the genera and 
species. They thus create a mass of new names, the greater part 
of which, being rejected by more considerate authors, figure 
afterwards as. useless synonyms in works of descriptive botany, 
and occasion a kind of scientific confusion of names which leads 
to erroneous inferences, Some botanists even go so far as to 
propose to change (without any botanical reason) names, con- 
secrated by long use, in favour of new ones, which seem tO ~ 
them more appropriate. See e. g. St. Lager’s Réforme de la 
Nomenclature Botanique. 1880, 
It is in vain, that we ask w 
hat benefit can acerue to science 
from the extravagant subtiliza 
tion and differentiation now pre 
vailing in systematic botany, by which the study of that scienc®@ — 
is rendered so complicated. N obody will, I think, now-a-days 
attempt to maintain the view that it lay in the plan of nature, 2 
‘Producing living beings, to create them according to a scheme 
