ON DISPUTED QUESTIONS OF BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 141 



applied to the plant should be selected at the option of the writer. 

 M. A. de CandoUe and those who agree with him maintain that the 

 specific designation given by the first describer of the plant is, as 

 a general rule, entitled to XDreference. 



The best test of the ai^plicability of these views is to consider 

 the consequences which their adoption would entail for the future. 

 It is pretty cei*tain that different opuiions as to the limits of genera 

 will long continue to prevail among botanists ; but it may be safely 

 predicted that those embodied in the great work now approaching 

 completion, the ' Genera Plantarum ' of Bentham and Hooker, 

 will find many followers among botanists of all countries. In the 

 numerous mstances where generic limits previously admitted have 

 been modified in that work, the authors have in some cases indi- 

 cated the specific name which each species, not previously admitted 

 to the genus which they have adopted, should hereafter bear ; but 

 more frequently they have omitted to do so. If M. Camel's views 

 are to i^revail, there is nothing to prevent anyone having a taste in 

 that direction from coining new names by the hundred for plants 

 which he has never studied, nay, of which he has never even seen 

 a specimen. Mr. Hiern's proposition, as I understand it, is more 

 limited ; but in so far as it leaves liberty of choice among various 

 specific names hitherto in use, it fails to secure the great deside- 

 ratum of unanimity among botanists. One writer will prefer one 

 specific name, another will choose a different one, — who, m the 

 absence of a fixed rule, is to decide between them ? The rule which 

 I advocate has at least two strong recommendations — that it will 

 leave no room for future divergence between writers working apaiii 

 in different countries ; and that even though they may differ as to 

 the genus in which a given plant should be placed, the preservation 

 of the same specific name will generally mark the identity of the 

 species intended by both. 



Like most general rules, that here advocated is liable to excep- 

 tions ; easily stated, however, and free from ambiguity. 1. If the 

 older sj)ecific name involves a statement wholly untrue and mis- 

 leading, it loses its claim to preference, just as it would do if the 

 plant were retained in the genus adopted by the first describer. 

 2. If the older specific name of a plant newly placed in a given 

 genus has been already applied to a species of that genus, the plant 

 must take the specific name next entitled to priority, and if there 

 be none, must receive a new designation. 3. Where, either from 

 the want of adequate materials, or from complete misunderstanding 

 of its structure and affinities, a name has been given at random to 

 a plant in a group with which it has no real relation, it cannot be 

 said that the species has been described, and the name so given has 

 no claim to subsequent recognition. 



Nearly all the objections urged to the rule, as here sought to be 

 defined, apply not so much to the com-se which should be followed 

 for the future to avoid creathig new synonyms, as to the somewhat 

 different question as to how we are to deal with those already in 

 existence. For plants retained in the genus to which they were 

 first ascribed, the rule of preferring the older name, where this is 



