148 FIRST RECORDS OF BRITISH FLOWERING PLANTS. 



plants. Mr. Clarke has done his work with great care, and the 

 help which my connection with the National Herbarium enabled 

 me to give him — help which is more than fully acknowledged 

 in the preface — has resulted in the addition of many details 

 gathered from the valuable collection of British plants which that 

 Herbarium contains. 



But Mr. Clarke has appended a "Note on Nomenclature" 

 which did not appear in the Journal, and from which I learn that 

 the names in his list, although tolerated by him, do not meet with 

 his approval. I propose to comment upon this Note somewhat in 

 detail, as it illustrates the curious confusion of mind which prevails 

 among many who are opposed to the rule of priority. Mr. Clarke, 

 I am glad to see, does not countenance the curiously inaccurate 

 statement of Dr. Dyer* that "it is almost impossible to reach 

 finality " in matters of nomenclature ; his objections are restricted 

 to questions of convenience and sentiment. I should be sorry if 

 anything I may say about the Note should be considered to detract 

 in the slightest degree from the value and interest of the book, of 

 which it forms but an insignificant portion. 



The Note, indeed, reminds me of Dickens's "Dog of Montargis," 

 who occupied one minute in his performance, and two lines in the 

 bill ; for although it figures prominently in the title, it takes up 

 little more than a page. It is a " plea for convenience " in its 

 crudest and most restricted form — a plea, that is to say, for our 

 present convenience, Mr. Clarke apparently adopting the view that 

 posterity must look after itself, and that antiquity has no practical 

 claims on our regard. The rule of priority, he says in effect, is an 

 excellent one, if you don't carry it out: "it is an abuse of this rule 

 to make it an excuse for changing the name of any plant which 

 has been for a long period (say fifty years or more) known by one 

 name without the active competition of any synonym." 



Mr. Clarke "makes [his] meaning quite clear" by means of "a 

 few instances." (He makes it clearer than he altogether intends, 

 I think ; for it is apparent that he has objections to names that are 

 " uncouth," " meaningless," "vexatious," and the like.) Bamm- 

 cuius sardous, for instance, in place of E. hirsutus Curt. : " who is 

 the better for such a change as this ? " Mr. Clarke seems to fancy 

 that some moral principle is involved in nomenclature, such as 

 that which prefers kind hearts to coronets. " Surely in this case 

 there was absolutely no occasion or excuse for any change." None, 

 except the trifling circumstance that Crantz described R. sardous 

 in 1763, while Curtis did not publish his hirsutus until eleven years 

 afterwards. " A few continental botanists might choose to call the 

 plant R. sardous'' — they might, nay, they do! — "and we could 

 not say they were ivrong " — here I am entirely at one with Mr. 

 Clarke — " but no confusion could possibly occur from our adhering 

 to Curtis's long-established and far better name." There is a fine 

 British flavour about this ; it is clearly the place of the foreigner 

 to follow the British lead, even if, as an Irishman might say, the 



• Journ. Bot. 189G, 114, 117. 



