116 BOTANICON SINICUM. 
as an example. It has been divided by Klotzch into 41 new 
genera. Bentham and Hooker, in their Genera Plant. I, 842, 
reject these altogether, admitting only the genus Begonia. 
The number of names of plants met now-a-days in botanical 
works is enormous; and it can hardly be supposed that there is a 
single botanist who would be able to retain in his memory even 
the generally admitted generic names, to say nothing of the 
synonyms, 
I know well that in entering a protest against the multiplication 
of generic and specific names in botany, I tread on delicate ground. 
I would never have dared, with my modest knowledge and ex- 
perience in botanical matters, to. profess an opinion so little 
coinciding with the ideas of the majority of botanists, had not my 
judgment been principally guided by the experiences laid down 
in Bentham and Hooker’s Genera Plantarum. The eminent 
authors of this work reject about one-half of the hitherto proposed 
genera (or assign to them the rank of subgenera at the most). 
As regards the hitherto described species, they seem to reduce 
them in a much larger proportion and throw together large heaps of 
useless synonyms. ‘Thus they reduce the species of Roses from 
250 enumerated species to 30; those of Rubus from 500 to 100; 
of Cinnamomum from 50 to 10; of Nasturtium from 80 to 20; of 
Gossypium from 13 to 3—4, etc. Other competent botanists, 
having made experiments in cultivating the various species of 
Capsicum, described in systematic works, have come to the con- 
clusion that all cultivated Capsica are nothing but varieties of C. 
annuum L. \ 
I would not like to be credited, however, with advocating 
superficial examination of plants, and a generalization in the de- 
scriptive details; nor have I any fault to find with a minute 
differentiation and dividing in systematic botany, supposing these 
characters apply to subgenera and varieties, and are not-intended 
to raise plants unreasonably to generic or specific rank. It cannot 
be denied that a careful distinction of the characters, and 
numerous divisions and subdivisions in systematic works essen- 
tially facilitate the determination of plants. But an extravagant 
nomenclature cannot but confuse the notions which systematic bo- 
tany ought to exhibit with respect to the relative affinities of plants. 
