TRELEASE— NAMING AMERICAN HYBRID OAKS. 45 



either parent species entails a change in each of the hybrid designa- 

 tions. For instance, if Professor Sargent's conclusion is to be ac- 

 cepted^ that the specific name Prinns must be applied to the cow 

 oak, and not to the rock chestnut oak, so that the name montana 

 is to be restored for the latter, the permissible designations of this 

 hybrid at once change to Q. alba X montana and Q. rnontana X 

 alba. This sort of double correction must be applied every time 

 that the name of either parent is dragged into the lamentable whirl- 

 pool of nomenclatorial debate, which in this particular branch can 

 be made hopelessly confused and voluminous by even a fraction of 

 the permutations that are likely to be made. 



Binomial designation of each hybrid — simple, secondary or of a 

 higher order- — offers escape from some of the difficulties attending 

 the multiple-name method. A binomial applied to a hybrid at once 

 falls under the procedure customary with ordinary specific bi- 

 nomials, and no matter what changes the trivial names of the parent 

 species may undergo its own applicability rests solely on the basis 

 of priority. In case of a change of generic names it is merely 

 dragged about with the species it is derived from, and in the rare 

 instances of what are or may come to be considered bigeneric 

 hybrids it does not itself suffer change in the new connection and 

 may cease to be dragged about, even, so soon as such hybrid genera 

 are given uniformly definite names of their own, such, for instance, 

 as Lcdio-Cattlcya, applied to the hybrid between the orchid genera 

 Lcclia and Cattlcya. Its position is even more stable than that of 

 varietal or subspecific trivial names, the treatment of which pre- 

 scribed by international conventions is not followed uniformly in 

 different countries or by different writers. 



One inherent defect in such binomial designation of hybrids re- 

 quires serious consideration. The scientific name of a species or 

 variety stands for an assemblage of individuals no two of which 

 may be alike but which j)Ossess characters of agreement by which 

 they dift'er from other assemblages of individuals to which they 

 are related in the genus they represent as species or in the species 

 they represent as varieties : it stands clearly for a morphological 

 concept. In contrast with this, the binomial applied to a hybrid ap- 



'^ Rhodora. 17: 40, 1915. 



