451 



the old one, with the useless description, not taken up again. At 

 the first publication of a narne, as I have shown, the diagnosis must 

 accompany it so that everyone can judge the value of the descri- 

 ption. If one find on the exarainatioii of originai specimens, certainly 

 many years later (but that makes no differetices), that the descri- 

 ption is incoraprenheiisible or such that it inay as easily include ten 

 species as one, or many species of different families or perhaps se- 

 veral species already known at the time of the first description, 

 the narae ought not to date back to the originai description, for it 

 is not sufficient that some one, perhaps fifty years later, should exa- 

 mine and thea complete or amend the description of the first au- 

 thor. The botanists who have lived during these fifty years have not 

 had an opportunity of using the description made after the exami- 

 uation of the type specimens. To me, at anyrate, it is strange to 

 found the priority of a name upon a description given fifty years la- 

 ter than the name itself. The examiner of a type specimen does not 

 always publish a description, but may onl}' refer it to a koown spe- 

 cies. — On the other hand one must take care not to forget the 

 Art. 53 and 55 of the «Lois». 



If we set more value upon originai specimens than upon the de- 

 scriptions in considering the claims of a name to priority, then fan- 

 cy takes the place of law, because originai specimens are not ac- 

 cessible to everyone (to the same exteut as the descriptions are) and 

 one must rely upon the opinion of other persons who have had the 

 opportunity of examiuing them. An originai specimen cannot be sub- 

 jected to public criticism while a published description can. It is -as 

 J interpret De Candolle^s «Lois» — the publishing which gives 

 right of priority irrespective of whether a type specimen be preser- 

 ved. The answer to the question, whether or not a certain plant- 

 name given say in 1891 should be retained ought to depend upon 

 comparision between the then published description and figures, if 

 any, and hitherto published descriptions and figure and not on the 

 examinatioii of specimens made afterwards even if they be the ori- 

 ginai specimens. 



P. AsCHERSON has made mention of two cases in which a wrong 

 result has been arrived at by attaching too much importance to ori- 

 ginai specimens. In bis paper «Die Nomenclatur-Frage vor dem Pa- 

 riser Botauischeu Congress» he says '): «I will mention, as examples, 



^) Botan. Zeitung 1868, p. 356: «Ich will hier z. B. nur zwel Linne'sch© 



