lOO BOTANICAL GAZETTE. 



biguity ; and the endeavor to keep the new wine in the old bottles 

 causes no litde strain. It is borne because it has been applied gradu- 

 ally. If Linnaeus had started with, or even reached our ideas, we 

 should happily have had a nomenclature to match. Now we must be 

 content, for descriptive purposes, to employ some words both in a re- 

 stricted and in a comprehensive sense, and let the context fix the 

 sense, just as it must in ordinary language. Technical precision is 

 only a matter of degree. But it is clear that the excellent rule here 

 laid down need not forbid the introduction of terms to express our 

 conceptions, such as rhizome, cau/onie, trichome, and the like. Yet 

 these are ill-chosen terms, except the last. In particular, rhizoina has 

 long ago been appropriated for something which is not of root nature, 

 but the contrary. 



(3) The third counsel is to change the name of an organ, as we 

 do that of a genus or species, only wh=;n it is positively contrary to the 

 truth, or when it has been pre-occupied. 



(4) Avoid giving special names for rare or ill definable cases of 

 structure. An epithet or short periphrasis is vastly preferable to a 

 new and strange term, which will be seldom used and may be hardly 

 understood. DeCandolle truly remarks that after a great multiplica- 

 tion of terms and distinctions generally comes some good generaliza- 

 tion, which does away with a crowd of particular names ; that what 

 has happened in carpology is likely to occur for microscopic organs. 



(5) Between two or more names choose, not the most agreeable, 

 or even the most significant, but the one best known and most widely 

 recognized 



(6) Between names equally known and used adopt the oldest. 

 Which are the older names is not difficult to know in the case of com- 

 mon organs, but is very much so in modern histology. 



(7) In this matter of priority or of usage, consider only names 

 taken from (or in conformity with) Latin or Greek. As in systematic 

 botany, scientific and not vulgar names are to be accounted in this re- 

 gard. Those who like spaltaffnitng for stoma or stomate and scheitel 

 zelle, must needs follow their own fashion ; but the genius of our own 

 and the French language resists their importation, while it adopts or 

 adapts with ease technical terms from classical sources. 



(8) Not to admit names contrary to these rules. 



Chapter XVI is an interesting and pertinent one, upon the man- 

 ner in which facts observed under the microscope are described ; and 

 on the great saving of space and advantage in clearness which would 

 be gained by the adoption, for all matters perfectly capable <if it, of 

 the Linniiean descriptive style, and of Linngean Latin. Extracts from 

 the German of Schacht, the French of Payer, and the Italian of Gas- 

 parrini are given, and by their side a rendering in descriptive Latin ; 

 and the words and letters are counted. The German specimen so 

 treated is diminished to considerably less than half the number of 

 words and a little less than half the number of letters. The French 

 simmers down to one-third the number of Latin words and less than 

 half the number of letters; and in the French of descriptive botany to 



