174 
Just in what way the removal of cortex delays wilting in the cut 
shoot is yet to be determined, but that it does is evident from results se- 
cured. It seems reasonable to suppose that if the cortex is removed and 
more wood-cells exposed, the shoots should take up more water, provided 
the cells exposed by the cross-section are not able to supply all the stem 
can carry. If they can, however, then the delay in wilting must depend 
on the fact that the more wood-cells exposed, the more time required for 
them to choke and break down; and this leaves us with the problem as 
regards the ‘‘absorption of water by decorticated stems,’’ either the supply 
is greater or the cells do not choke so soon. 
InpIANA PuLaAnt Rusts, Listep iy ACCORDANCE WITH LATEST NOMENCLATURE. 
By J. C. ARTHUR. 
Stability in nomenclature is conceded by all to be important. In botany 
there should be one recorded name for each plant by which it can be iden- 
tified, and none other should be valid. If this could be strictly maintained, 
the study of plants would be simplified, for not only would doubt be re- 
moved regarding the true application of a name, but when a name was 
once learned it would hold good for all time. How different the present 
status of botanical usage is has been brought to the attention of every 
one using the successive editions of Gray’s Manual, a work that probably 
has introduced more American students of recent years to an acquaint- 
ance with the plants of field and highway than all others combined. Those 
of us who were brought up botanically on the fifth edition learned to call 
the pretty little white rue-anemone, so abundant in spring, Thalictrum 
anemonoides, but with the new edition in 1890 we were asked to forget that 
name—no, not to forget it, but to remember that it is not the right one— 
and to say, instead, Anemonella thalictroides. If one had but to relearn a 
few hundred names, and feel assured that no further demands would be 
thrust upon him, the task would seem less wearisome. But the new 
manual names are scarcely fixed in mind before the valuable work by 
Britton and Brown comes to us, a work so admirably conceived and exe- 
cuted, and so conveniently devised to assist the learner, that it must be 
recognized as the foremost manual of our flora, and we are again asked 
to put away the former names of our little rue-anemone and to rechristen 
it among our list of acquaintances as Syndesmon thalictroides. There are 
