ENUMERATION OF PHILIPPINE LEGUMINOSAE. 3 



In the above list the 18 retained names given in the first column would 

 be displaced by the older ones, given in the second column, were the 

 principles of priority to be applied without reservation. The author 

 does not pei'sonally approve of all the retained generic names, and it is 

 believed that in a number of cases better results would have been secured 

 had the list been made up with more discretion. The list will not bear 

 close inspection without showing its deficiencies, botli in names included, 

 and in those omitted. The method by which these names were selected 

 appears to have been purely arbitrary, with little or no consideration of 

 the facts in the individual cases, and it is believed that, granting a list 

 of nomina consenrii^da to be expedient and necessary, better results would 

 have been secured, had a proposed list been adopted by the Vienna Con- 

 gress, for definite acceptance or rejection At the next International 

 Botanical Congress, thus giving opportunity for some discussion of the 

 proposed names, arguments for and against the adoption of certain ones, 

 and opportunity to propose additions to the list. 



In the Lcguminosac of the Philippines' alone, similar action should 

 have been taken in the case of several genera, in order to have made the 

 list of nomina conservnnda consistent. Eniada Adans. (1763), should 

 have been retained instead of Pursaetha L. (1747), Gigalobium P. Br. 

 (1756), or Lens Stickm. (1754); Seshania Scop. (1777), instead of 

 Seshan Adans., or Agaii Adans. (1763) ; Sindora Miq. (1860), instead 

 of Galediipa Lam. (1786) ; and possibly also Dalea L. (1737), instead 

 of Parosda Cav. (1802), although the last case is complicated by synon- 

 ymy and homonymy. If, as in the list of nomina conservanda, Clianthvs 

 be given preference to Donia, then for the sake of consistency, Atylosia 

 should have been retained in place of CantJiarospermum, yet on the one 

 hand Clianthm is given preference to Donia, and on the other Cantharos- 

 permum is preferred to Atylosia, although in both cases there is only 

 page priority, and in the last case Atylosia is certainly the more generally 

 used name. 



In the following consideration generic limits as defined, by Bentham 

 in the "genera Plantanim," and by Taubert in Engler and Prantl's "Die 

 natiirlichen Pflanzenfamilien" have been followed, and the sequence of 

 genera followed is that of the latter work. In studying the Philippine 

 material, as well as the extra-Philippine plants in this herbarium, I have 

 been impressed with the inequality in the treatment of genera by- the 

 above authors. Especially in the Papilionatae one finds genera separated 

 by exceedingly slight and often obscure characters, as with Dunharia and 

 Canfharospei'mum, Vigna and Phaseolus, and, as some authors propose, 

 the separation of Lahlal from Dolichos as a distinct genus. In the cases 

 just cited, the characters considered worthy of being the bases of generic 

 distinctions, are certainly not as strong, nor as well defined, as are those 

 by which various sections or subgenera of Cacsalpinia, Cassia, Bauhinia, 



