132 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 



(p. 87) that it is unnecessary to repeat it here. The treatment 

 of the species is so detailed that only one critically versed in 

 their study could offer any useful comment upon it. We must 

 therefore content ourselves w^ith some remarks upon the general 

 plan and execution of the work, as detailed by Dr. Moss in his 

 introduction. 



The objects of the work are thus stated : " First, an attempt 

 is made to register the present state of knowledge with regard to 

 British plants — their classification, their names, their characters, 

 and their distribution. Secondly, an attempt is made to relate 

 British plants to the allied forms of foreign countries. And 

 thirdly, a hope is entertained that the work will result in stimu- 

 lating further research concerning British plants, particularly with 

 regard to the study of their variations and the distribution of the 

 less well-known forms." 



The section on nomenclature is interesting and clearly set 

 forth, but we regret that the Eules and recommendations laid 

 down by the International Congress at Vienna have not been 

 altogether, instead of "in general," adopted. We are entirely at 

 one with Dr. Moss in rejecting the accidental binominals of Hill 

 and other pre-Linnean books, though we are not so clear as to 

 the exclusion of Adanson as "pre-Linnean in character although 

 not in chronology " ; but we think the names of species ought, in 

 all possible cases, to stand as in the first edition of Linnaeus's 

 Sjjecies Plantarum. What is referred to as "the Kew rule" was 

 not happily so named ; for although the retention of the earliest 

 trivial name received by a species when placed under its correct 

 genus — always observed by the British Museum and usually by 

 French botanists — was often followed at Kew, it was there sub- 

 ordinated to " convenience " when such subordination was con- 

 sidered desirable. 



Our chief objection however is to the use of small letters for 

 trivial names, as to which Dr. Moss expressed his views in this 

 Journal for 1913, p. 21 : as we then said, " it seems to us undesir- 

 able to depart from a practice which is sanctioned both by rule 

 and custom," and we cannot agree with him when he says that 

 no "precise rule or custom" exists. The matter is hardly of 

 sufficient importance to make a fuss about, and we allow Dr. 

 Moss — who, like the rest of us, likes to have his own way and is 

 perhaps more fortunate because more insistent in getting it — to 

 follow his plan in our pages rather than deprive our readers of 

 his valuable contributions. But it seems undesirable to depart 

 from established custom unless for some considerable advantage ; 

 and it is not without significance that the Kew botanists, who at 

 one time adopted the practice, soon returned to the general 

 custom. A similar departure from general use is noticeable in 

 the printing of the name of the species at the head of each 

 description without any appended authority : Dr. Moss gives no 

 reason for this method, which was opposed by all the botanists 

 who spoke at the meeting held to consider the plan of the Flora. 

 The synonymy given for each species includes certain names 



