AMERICAN NOMENCLATURE, 151 



hope in describing a species in the future to do better than this ? 

 Under the loug-estabhshed usage of conservative botanists sucli a 

 name would be inviolable ; under the Madison rules, however, 

 Prof. Brittou is able to displace it by combining the same specific 

 name with the same generic, but to designate an entirely different 

 plant, namely, Chrysopsis pilusa Britton [Erujeron pilusa Walt.), 

 making thereby a most useless and pernicious synonym of Nuttall's 

 name, which has every right to stand. 



It is not the special case that is here important, but the geuertil 

 principle, which permits such changes, and will continue to permit 

 them in the future. The upheaval of nomenclature under this law 

 will not cease even when most of the obscure names of the past 

 have been sought out. It will always be possible for a botanist 

 through perfectly conscientious work to readjust generic lines so 

 that species of the same specific name are thrown together. In 

 such cases, under the prevalent usage, that species which was 

 already under the genus retained stands fast. But according to 

 the Madison rule, as we have just seen, if the species brought into 

 the genus chances to liave an older specific name than the species 

 already in the genus, both plants are to be re-named instead of 

 only one. It does not seem to have occurred to the reformers that 

 this ruling, far from being conducive to stability, would, especially 

 when combined with another of their dicta, give perpetual oppor- 

 tunity for change, since it will always be possible for an erratic 

 botanist to throw together large genera like Aster and Krigeron, 

 Bidens and Coreopsis, Fanicum and Faspalum, thereby displacing 

 many specific names, which, according to the rule of "once a 

 synonym always a synonym," can never be revived 1 This outcome 

 seems so preposterous that it must be stated that it is not merely 

 the writer's own unautliorised interpretation, but the distinctly 

 expressed although unpublished view of one of the compilers of the 

 list, who has been among the foremost in the cause of nomenclature 

 reform. 



It is impossible here to criticise in detail the bibliographical 

 work in the list. It is well known that it has been done gratuitously 

 by those who, pressed with otlier duties, could ill afford the time, 

 so that slips may well be overlooked. Nevertheless it must be 

 confessed that it is disappointing to find such obvious evidences of 

 haste, not to say carelessness, m this regard. Why, for instance, 

 should lodanthiis pinnatijidus be ascribed to Prantl when it was 

 used long ago in Steudel's Nomenclutor (with synonym), again by 

 Gray in the Proceedings of the American Academy, again by Watson 

 in tbe Botany of the King Expedition '? The fact that Prantl him- 

 self was ignorant of these earlier publications is but a poor excuse 

 for an American botanist well armed with Watson's Bibliographical 

 Index or the recently issued Index Keicensis, in both of which the 

 combination is cited. Or why should the place of publication of 

 Celakovsky's genus Stenopliragina be given as (Jester r. Bot. Zeitschr. 

 xxvii. 177, when there is merely a review by Dichtl of Celakovsky's 

 Flora von Bohuien, while the publication of the genus was not even 

 in this latter work, but some years before in the liegensburg Flora 1 



