34 INTRODUCTION. 



catalogue useful and intelligible, in duty to all who con- 

 sult it, we had to consider what well recognized standard 

 we could follow. The choice appeared to lie between 

 Gray's Manual, mainly the work of our greatest botanist, 

 and the principles now embodied in their strictest form in 

 the Rochester Code and extended in the Madison Code. 

 The chief of these principles one of us had studied for 

 years, and the other had put to practical use, as a test of 

 their real value. Moreover, we both felt that the priority 

 of the specific name should on sound analogies be main- 

 tained, in opposition to the well known rule of Dr. Gray 

 that the first specific name in the right genus should 

 prevail. Nevertheless, as a result of our deliberation we 

 have decided that a local Flora at this time without ques- 

 tion must follow Gray's Manual, whether or not its authors 

 agree entirely with the nomenclature of that work; that 

 to follow strictly the system dictated by the Rochester 

 Code is utterly impracticable and unwise, for it is neither 

 consistent in theory nor sound in practice. This conclu- 

 sion has been reached after long judicial consideration of 

 the arguments for and against the system of the Rochester 

 Code, whether practical or theoretical in nature, and with 

 an earnest desire to approve any really beneficial altera- 

 tions in the commonly accepted system of botanical nomen- 

 clature. We regret, therefore, that the Code, as a whole, 

 must be condemned for the evil that is in it, and that the 

 good it contains cannot be utilized in its present form. 

 As it stands, it seems the work of botanists whose vision 

 is bounded by the book-shelves of the library and by the 

 herbarium walls rather than of botanists possessing that 

 added knowledge and grasp of affairs that is so indis- 

 pensable to a correct solution of difficulties in such a 

 practical matter as that of botanical nomenclature. 



