,3,, BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 619 



pronouncing that "if the identical name for both genus and species 

 is to be avoided, it is the genus that must go." -5 We may be 

 thankful that this gentleman did not proceed forthwith to formulate 

 a new series of generic names to meet the possibility thus indicated, 

 as Professor Greene has done in his paper already referred to^'^ 

 (see p. 616). 



The position now claimed for the specific name has been fully 

 discussed in an admirable note by Professor L. H. Bailey — one of the 

 ablest of the American botanists — published in the Botanical Gazette 

 for i8gi, p. 215. He applies the term " monomialism " to the new 

 scheme, and says : "They are telling us that two words do not con- 

 stitute the name of the plant, but that the name, per se, is the second 

 word of the two. In other words, Sacchavinwn is the name of the 

 sugar maple, and Repens is the name of the white clover. This is the 

 monomial system of nomenclature, and its devotees are delving 

 through every author in the hope of finding the name of the plant. 

 When this name is found — or supposed to be found, which amounts 

 to the same thing — it is attached to some generic name to which it 

 was never designed to fit, and the twain, to which an algebraic 

 formula has been attached, is given to the world as the monomio- 

 binomial name of the plant." I cannot quote at greater length 

 Professor Bailey's vigorous and well-timed protest, but his concluding 

 sentence must be cited. " One of the most mischievous features of 

 the w^hole thing is the ease with which authors of local floras obtain 

 a cheap notoriety by making new combinations — which will likely be 

 changed by the next cataloguer— and the extent to which it fosters 

 the notion that making a new name and differing from an authority 

 are the chief ends of systematic botany." 



With regard to the citation of authorities, it seems to me that 

 the name of that author is to be adopted who has first placed a plant 

 in the genus to which it is recognised as belonging. This view is in 

 accordance with the practice prevailing at Kew. There is, however, 

 a manifest want of right feeling in the application of the rule in 

 cases where a man has done nothing but transfer a plant from one genus 

 to another, adding his own name to the new combination. In the 

 Botanisches Centralblatt for 1891 (xlvii., pp. 385-395), Dr.Taubert restores 

 a number of Aublet's names, which take precedence of those by 

 which the genera have usually been known — among them Swartzia, 

 Devvis, and Macrolobium, which give place to Tounatea, Deguelia, and 

 Vouapa respectively. He proceeds to enumerate the species, to 

 which, in almost every case, he attaches his own name. Unless some 

 justification can be found for disregarding them, it would seem that these 

 names must stand ; but Dr. Taubert's action is contrary to general 

 practice, as well as to good taste. In cases where the restitution of an 

 old generic name has been established, it is customary to leave the 



^2 Id., p. 95. 2e Pittonia, vol. ii., pp. 1S5-195. 



