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AMERICAN NOMENCLATURE. 



[The revolt against the arbitrary dicta of certain American 

 botanists, which has, as we have shown, been growing for some 

 time, has found expression in a memorandum which is being 

 widely circulated, and has received the signatures of seventy-four 

 Americans. Among these are such well-known names, even on 

 this side of the Atlantic, as L. H. Bailey, M. S. Bebb, D. C. Eaton, 

 W. G. Farlow, G. L. Goodale, T. H. McBride, J. Macoun, and 

 T. Meehan, while the others represent a large proportion of 

 American workers. 



The main lines of the memorandum are those which have been 

 consistently advocated in these pages : and our differences from it, 

 so far as they exist, are on very minor points. That the action of 

 those who have formulated the "Rochester Code" has excited 

 much opposition among American botanists has for some time 

 been obvious," and the following extract from a private letter 

 shows how strong a feeling exists against the proposed innovations. 

 The charge of suppression with Avhich it concludes, serious though 

 it be, will surprise no one who remembers the method by which Asa 

 Gray's last words on nomenclature were withheld from publication.! 



" We are now in a very critical position in tliis country. A good 

 many botanists really prefer to maintain the Candollean system, 

 but there are a certain number of very energetic botanists who have 

 tried to force an entire change of system and names, and, being 

 loud-mouthed and proclaiming the 0. Kuntzian method as modified 

 by themselves as the only method of stability, they have persuaded 

 some and intimidated others. There are always a good many 

 persons ready to go with the crowd, and they join the so-called 

 reform party. I do not know what the result will be. Those who 

 prefer the Candollean method get no aid from Kew or other 

 European authorities, whereas the other side claim that they are 

 supported by Germany and the Continent. If an international 

 congress is called, and a system formulated, it will be next to 

 impossible for all Americans to avoid adopting that system, what- 

 ever it may be, and it is pretty sure not to be the old Candollean 

 system, although it will not be the so-called Rochester Code of this 

 country. Personally I detest the use of a parenthesis and the use 



of the oldest specific name An international congress, if 



called together, would not endorse all the wildness of the Rochester 

 Code as it is now being forced upon us ; and to follow an inter- 

 national code framed after serious discussion would be much better 

 than to struggle along in the present confusion. You have no 

 conception of the violence of the discussions on nomenclature now 

 going on in this country. The only two botanical journals are 

 controlled by the 'reformers,' and tliey claim that the American 

 system is endorsed by Berlin and the Continent generally, and that 

 Kew and Harvard are the only places opposed. That is not the 



• See Jourii. Bot. 1895, 19, 149, t See Journ. Bot. 189-4, 19. 



