Journal of Mtcologt 



A Periodical Devoted to North American Mycology. Issued 'Bi- 

 monthly; January, March, May, July, September and November 

 Price, $2.00 per Year. To Foreign Subscribers $2.2^. Edited and 

 Puhhshed by ^ ^ KELLERMAN, PH. D., COLUMBUS, OHIO. 



EDTOR'S NOTES. 



In the April No. of the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical 

 Club is published a new caste of the American Code of Botanical 

 Nomenclature, being the 1904 Philadelphia canons with a few 

 amendments. These changes are made in part to meet the re- 

 quirements of the 1905 Vienna Code ; but some of the rules and 

 recommendations of the Vienna Congress are not acceptable to 

 the members and alternates of the Nomenclature Commission of 

 the Botanical Club of the A. A. A. S. 



In Mycolog}- as in other branches of Botany, uniform and 

 concerted action among taxonomists is greatly to be desired; 

 and all efforts leading to stability and uniformity are to be com- 

 niended. Our Commission is insistent on the principle of types 

 which the Vienna Congress failed to recognize. Another con- 

 tention of the Americans — consistent and commendable — is that 

 nothing should be arbitrary or exceptional in application. Ob- 

 jectionable therefore, is the action of the Vienna Congress in 

 excluding a large number of generic names from the operation 

 of all nomenclatorial rules, and in requiring diagnosis of new 

 species to be in the Latin language after January ist, 1908. 



We have several comments to make on the new code, though 

 space requires that one or two only be given here. Canon i, 

 should, we think, be omitted. There is a general agreement 

 approximately if not essentially uniform as to the meaning of 

 species in Nature — and even the conception of genus is not so 

 divergent but that the work of specialists generally secures ap- 

 proval. We see no advantage in an attempted definition of 

 species — surely the rules and practices in nomenclature are not 

 dependent on the theoretical statement. Again, a genus may 

 exist even if there is but one species and not a group, and any 

 one of the entire series mentioned in Canons 3 and 4 may be 

 similarly restricted — then wherefore "group" the representative? 

 We think it adequate to substitute for the four Canons men- 

 tioned, the mere statement that the groups in ascending series 

 recognized in botany are species, genera, tribes, families, orders, 

 classes and divisions ; and names of a lower group or of inter- 

 mediate groups, when necessary, may be formed from the pre- 

 ceding by using the prefix siih. 



Joarnal of Mycology, Vol. 13, pp. 137-184, laaued July 25, 1907. 



