[Proc. Eoy. Soc. Victoria, 20 (N.S.), Pt. II., 1907.] 



AiiT. XI. — Contributions to the Flora of Australia, 

 No. 7} 



By ALFRED J. EWART, D.Sc, Ph.D., F.L.S., 



Goveniment Botiinist and Professor of Botany 

 at the Melbourne University. 



[Read 14th November, 1907.] 



Latin in Systematic Botany. 



At the last Botanical Cnugress, held at Vienna in 1905, on the 

 whole a salutary check was administered to the objectionable 

 tendencies of modern systematists in certain quarters, especially 

 as regards frivolous changes of name, and it is, in fact, a matter 

 of regret that the list of protected nameis was not greatly in- 

 creased. On the other hand, it is impossible to follow !Mi\ 

 Maiden" when he states that bntanists are as bound by these laws 

 as by those of their own country, and must follow these laws 

 whether they approve of them or not. "For this to be requisite the 

 Congress would need to be a really representative one, to which all 

 botanists sent elected representatives. At present it is a fortuitous 

 concourse almost solely of systematists, among whom the local 

 interests of the country in which the Congress is held are always 

 unduly strongly represented. So far as I am aware, botanists 

 from the south of the Equator were entirely unrepresented, and 

 plant physiologists and anatomists were conspicuous by their 

 absence. Yet the man who has intimately investigated the 

 structure and properties of a plant has a greater claim to 

 decide that its name shall not be aJtered than the systematist 

 whose interest in the plant largely ceases as soon as it is 

 labelled, and is often only revived when a chance of relabelling it 

 occurs. 



1 No. C in Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict, 1907, vol. 20, p. 76. 



2 Jour. Roy. Soc. N.S. Wales, vol. xl., 1906, p. 74. 



