72 ON A QUESTION OF BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



EiCHLERLV, nov. f/en. — Calyx Mimusopis v. Imhricaria:. Petala 

 totidem, appeiidicibus petaloideis geminatis integris Mimusopis. 

 Stamina eodem uumero petalis alternantia et totidem eis aiiteposita, 

 omnia fertilia. Carpella sectionis [Mimmopmrum) sepalis antepositis. 

 — Genus a Mimusope staminibus alternipetalis fertilia tantum differt. 



Species 2 : — 



1. E. discolor, milii [Lahourdonnaisia, Sond. in Linnaea, xxiii, 



73). Natal. 



2. E. albescens, milii {Lahourdonnaisia, Benth. ; Bassia, Griseb. 



in Cat. PI. Cub., 164). Cuba. 



ON A QUESTION OF BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 

 By W. p. Hiern, M.A. 



The law which should regulate the choice or creation of the 

 botanical names of plants has been the subject of an interesting 

 discussion in the June, August, September, and December numbers 

 of the 'Journal of Botany' for last year, and the contributors to it 

 have been the Editor, Professors A. DeCandolle and Caruel, and 

 Mr. Ball. I had hoped that some of our greatest systematic 

 botanists in this country, besides those included above, would have 

 taken part in the controversy so far as to leave no doubt in the 

 public mind, or in the minds of foreign botanists, about their views. 

 They at least do not agree with the last-named botanist in regarding 

 the priority of the specific portion of a plant's name as all-important, 

 and in Tequiring it, unless already adopted for another species of 

 the genus, to be respected without regard to any other names in 

 the genus to which the plant is found to belong, that may have 

 previously existed for the plant in question. It is doubtless true 

 that the majority of our leatling botanists have long shown in their 

 systematic publications, and still prove by their practice, that such 

 is not their rule ; still a plain statement supported by argument, and 

 made by such a veteran as Mr. Bentliam, would have been useful : 

 it would have turned the scale of testimony, and gone a long way 

 towards the settlement of the question. 



It is admitted on both sides that the multiplication of syno- 

 nymy, which at present has. acquired enormous dimensions, and 

 which is daily increasing, is a real evil and serious inconvenience ; 

 and therefore it is a fair presumption to lay down that laws of 

 nomenclature ought not to require unnecessarily a fm-ther increase 

 of synonymy. It then follows that an ah-eady existing name is 

 (unless regard be had to other considerations) preferable to one to 

 be created ; and this deduction applies as well to generic words as 

 to si^ecific combinations. Li the case of siDecific combmations, it 

 is of course essential to final precision, on the Linn^ean plan of 

 binominous nomenclature, that the left-hand component, being 

 a generic word, should be the recognised name of the genus to 

 which the species belongs ; and this limitation is universally 



