200 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. f[Vol. XXV 



of the compactness of the present "Key," and an improvement 

 by reason of additions and corrections rendered necessary in the 

 light of recent investigation. But, until the advent of such a 

 help, is it not better that we should keep consistently to the old 

 datum when publishing in the Victorian Naturalist, in which case 

 errors would be the more easily discovered and adjusted, and 

 avoid such literary discrepancies as, e.g., those which may be 

 found by comparing the "Recording Census" and the Herbarium 

 list of Promontory flora? In neither of the foregoing is there 

 anything to show that Bypolcena — Calostrophus, Olearia = 

 Aster, Astroloma and Leucopogon = Styphelia, or Stylidum — 

 Candollea, &c. Then one becomes uncertain whether the 

 absence of, e.g., Gomopholobium Huegelii, Benth. (of the 

 Herbarium Promontory list) and Asplenium ftaccidum, Forst. 

 (Mueller's "Key," part i) from the "Recording Census" is real 

 or imaginary — whether they were omitted inadvertently or, 

 instead, lurk there under synonyms. A table of equivalents as a 

 general reference where the " Flora Australiensis," &c., are used 

 would, of course, be of the greatest value, but from a busy 

 botanical department this may perhaps be asking too much, and 

 one's thoughts return persistently to Baron von Mueller's " Key," 

 particularly part i (1887-8), as a possibly faulty but certainly most 

 convenient datum for our reports of all plants therein included. 



[Some references to reasons for changes of names of Australian 

 genera of plants will be found in a paper by the late Baron von 

 Mueller, entitled " Considerations of Phytographic Expressions 

 and Arrangements," in the " Journal and Proceedings of the 

 Royal Society of New South Wales," vol. xxii. (1888), page 187. 

 —Ed. Vict. Nat.] 



THE CHANGES OF NAMES IN THE " RECORDING 



CENSUS." 



By x\lfred J. EwART, D.Sc, Government Botanist. 

 {Read hef ore the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, Wi March, 1909.) 

 I HAVE been asked, for the benefit of those using the " Recording 

 Census," to indicate those cases where the names used differ 

 from those in the " Key to the System of Victorian Plants." 

 Purposely the naming in the " Recording Census " was kept as 

 close as possible throughout to the naming in the works already 

 in use in Victoria, since to make all the changes that will 

 ultimately prove necessary would have made the work unintel- 

 ligible in many cases to local botanists, without the aid of a new 

 descriptive flora, which has yet to come. 



The Herbarium will steadily oppose all unnecessary changes of 

 name, of which some extraordinary ones have been proposed in 

 the past ten or more years, such as Sirmiillera and Pimelea for our 



