the facts.” | 
applied to varietal names. It was decided at 5 Vieons that 
may do just as he pleases with a varietal name. 
cate it as often as he cares to in the same genus so fone h 
does not apply it to two forms of the same species, that | is, 
hundred species in a genus might each have a variety mi demos 
pumila, but no species may have two varieties pumzla,; the same  : 
name may be used in a genus for both species and variety; and — 
one may recognize or disregard some other botanist’s varietal 
names at pleasure. To some people this may seem to be a 
small matter not worth mentioning, but it should be remem- 
bered that great things have their beginning in small things. 
Looseness at this point is the entering wedge for a recession to 
the good old days as they were before the “reformers” began to 
demand fair play and the recognition of the law of priority as 
an applied principle instead of a thing we might say we believe 
in, yet disregard at will if we happen to be an “authority. If 
we may do as we please with varietal names, we will after a 
little do the same with specific and generic ones. 
The ‘American code,” published in the current volume of 
the Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, is undoubtedly the 
most rational yet adopted, and that “a lot of our prominent bot- 
anists appear to be following it,” is a very good sign. This 
American code recognizes the rights of the varietal name, and 
says that it must not be the same as a specific name in the same 
genus; that any given varietal name may be used but once in a 
genus, and that it may not be displaced by any other name un- 
less it isa homonym. But there is one interpretation of a hoin- 
onym to which we do not subscribe, the following being a case 
at point: The name vodustus in Juncus acuminatus var robus- 
tus Engelmann, 1868, must be changed and not called Juncus 
robustus (Engelm.) Coville, because in 1879 Watson named 
another plant Juncus robustus. We do not seeany valid reason 
for this ruling, and consider it the one weak spot in an other- 
wise admirable code. 
ae 
