624 FARWELL: CORRECT NAME FOR HEMLOCK SPRUCE 
enumerated are considered to be based upon citations rather than 
upon the descriptive phrases. Should then the most emphasis 
be placed upon the description or upon the citations? This is 
an important principle upon which no agreement has been reached; 
it ought to be definitely settled by a botanical congress, since very 
often, as in the present instance, widely different results may be 
obtained by different authors following out the different methods 
of treatment. Some authors prefer to adopt the descriptive matter 
as their guide, others the synonyms cited; so that we have such 
expressions as Sonchus alpinus L., as to character; or, as to the 
synonymy; or, as to the habitat, as the case may be. In the 
present instance, and it might be said in all instances of the kind, 
the best way is to let the internal evidence decide, adopting the 
name for that element which receives the preponderant weight of 
evidence. If citations are considered to carry the greatest weight, 
for the Species Plantarum is par excellence the work in which the 
binomial system is applied to citations, then the name Pinus 
balsamea L. belongs to the hemlock spruce, for all the citations under 
that name are of this species. The Linnaean herbarium contains 
no specimen which can be designated as the type, since it con- 
tained no specimen of the species at the time of its publication. 
Let us now look at the descriptive matter—the diagnostic phrase 
and the note under Habitus. There is absolutely nothing in the 
descriptive matter that will limit it to any one species; the cones 
are not at all considered; the characters ascribed to the leaves are 
applicable to other species than the balsam fir; in other words 
they are of a group or groups of a higher order than that of a 
species, i. e., an aggregate. The same may be said of the habitat 
given, which is Virginia and Canada; the specific name is balsamea, 
and this alone is indicative of what Linnaeus may have had in 
view as the type of his species. As a matter of fact, the Pinus 
balsamea of Linnaeus is so broadly drawn that it may be appro- 
priately considered a huge pit into which all the spruces and irs 
of eastern North America may be conveniently dropped to form a 
conglomerate whole. Notwithstanding the fact that the Species 
Plantarum is primarily a publication founded upon the work of 
earlier botanists and that the binomials therein are mostly based 
upon and applied to the citations enumerated from those earlier 
