. af 
combination is at the bototm of so many new names in American 
botany. Ji his statement is true then there must have been some 
other weighty reason for the coinage of these names due to deep 
s 
American plants? What deep and exhaustive reason led Mr. 
Heller to coin the name Astragalus Malheurensis for Rydberg’s 
Astragalus Cusickii when he did not know enough about it to 
know it was already a synonym for a variety of Astragalus ar- 
rectus? What deep and exhaustive research leads Mr. Heller in 
nearly every issue of Muhlenbergia to make a new batch of names 
for recently described species which he finds are homonyms b 
‘referring to the Kew Index when he does not know whether the 
proposed species are valid or not, or whether the names given in 
. 
the Index are nomina nuda or not? Any eighth grade school boy — 
could do as well as that. Does Mr. Heller think that is good bot- 
any? If so he stands almost alone. No one denies that he or 
any other person has a legal right to publish what he likes, but 
no one has a moral or botanical right to make names for things 
that he knows nothing about. It is in violation of the fundamental 
laws of botanical good taste, and is everywhere condemned. 
This craze for making new names for plants reminds one of 
a lot ef school boys at a pie counter in a mad scramble for fear 
they will not get any pie. A sample of this foolish work is in 
Muhlenbergia 4 56 where Cockerell rushes into print because the 
there at all and Rafinesque published nothing of any kind on that 
to get a Cockerell tail on a new botanical name the Kew Index 
blunder would never have been noticed. 
Mr. Heller says that I am objecting to so many new names — 
and yet I do not hesitate to make many myself, and therefore it 
is a case of the pot calling the kettle black. The logic ot this con- 
clusion reminds me of the conundrum “When potatoes are wort 
fifty cents a bushel how many beans will it take to shingle a meet- 
; 
t 
‘d 
