622 NATURAL SCIENCE. oci-.. 



therefore the following works cannot claim a right of priority : — Rum- 

 phius, Herbarium Amhoincnse (i 741 -1755); Burmann, Flora Indica 

 (1768); Patr. Browne, History of Jamaica (1756); Lamarck, Illustra- 

 tion des Genres pro parte, &c. 



Ad III. There are to be conserved Adenia as well as Adeiiiuin, 

 Aciiista as well as Acnistus, Alectra as well as Alectryon, Apios as well as 

 Apinm, Riihia as well as Rubus, Bellis as well as Bellinm, Clitoris as well 

 as Chlorea and Chlora, Glyphcea as well as Glyphis and Glyphia, Calo- 

 pogon as well as Calopogonium, Atropa as well as Atropis, Galax as well 

 as Galaxia and Galadia, Danae as well as Danais, Drimia as well as 

 Drimys, Glechoma as well aS Glechon, Hydrothvix as well as Hydrotriche, 

 Micranthus as well as Micrantheum, Microtea as well as Microtns, Platy- 

 stemma as well as Platystemon, Silvcsa as well as Silvia, &c. ; we doubt 

 that there is any scholar who will confound them. On the contrary, 

 Tctraclis and Tetracleis, Oxythece and Oxytheca, Epidendrum and Epiden- 

 dron, Oxycoccus and Oxycoccos, A sterocarpus and Astrocarpns, Peltoste ma and 

 Peltisiema, are only different modes of spelling the same word, and the 

 newer one is to be refused, if they name different genera. 



Ad IV. The impulse that led to the acknowledgment of the right 

 of priority was only the vivid desire to create a stable nomenclature. 

 If we see that by the absolute and unlimited observance of 

 the principle we probably gain the contrary of what we 

 intended, we, who have ourselves made the rules of priority 

 as a law, have the right to amend the latter. Therefore we 

 present a list of genera that have more than a merely scientific 

 interest, or that are very large, and we propose to conserve them in 

 spite of the rules of priority, in order to avoid a general confusion by 

 the change of many thousand names. 



When the memorandum was first submitted to us at the British 

 Museum, we thought that the date 1737 might continue to be 

 accepted for genera, and we wrote in that sense to Professor Engler. 

 In his absence. Professor Ascherson replied, pointing out that this 

 date had only been fixed by M. De Candolle in 1883, and that that 

 botanist had no intention of implying that all genera established 

 between 1 737 and 1 753, and ignored by Linnaeus in the Species Plantariim, 

 should be resuscitated. M. De Candolle now fully concurs in the 

 proposals of the Berlin memorandum, and adopts the fourth edition 

 of the Genera (1752) for genera, and the first edition of the 

 Species (1753) for the species. The fact that the fourth edition 

 of the Genera is not actually by Linnaeus himself, is met by the state- 

 ment that it was recognised by him as authentic, seeing that he styled 

 the next edition, by himself, the fifth. After this explanation, the 

 British Museum botanists withdrew their objection, and gave their 

 corporate assent to the only article of the Berlin memorandum as to 

 which they had had any doubt in the following terms : 



" We do not see how we can stop short of 1737 when dealing with 

 genera ^5 genera. But as binomial names — and every specific name 

 includes, of course, both the generic and the trivial designations — did 

 not exist until the publication of the Species Plantarum in 1753, we 

 agree that a name given in that work cannot be set aside for one the 

 generic part of which was ignored or set aside by Linnaeus ; and we 



