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Notes on the International Botanical Congress of 1905. 



By J. C. Arthur. 



International botanical congresses have been held at different times 

 during the last half century. They have originated under various 

 auspices, and for various purposes, but until the one held in Vienna 

 during the last summer none had had direct connection with a preceding 

 congress. Heretofore at each such gathering papers have been read, 

 suggestions made, and resolutions passed, but no mandatory pov^^er was 

 exercised. For want of a stable and self-perpetuating organization based 

 upon a system of representation having the approval of botanists in 

 general, it has been impossible to make rules for guidance in any line of 

 botanical activity which any large number of botanists would accept as 

 authoritative. 



At the congress held in Paris in 1900 steps were taken to make the 

 organization a permanent one, the proper officers and committees were ap- 

 pointed, and the adjournment was taken to meet again in Vienna in 

 1905. There are many ways in which a properly constituted body speak- 

 ing with authority could be of inestimable service in directing the activity 

 of the botanical world. But in one matter there has been for a long 

 time a practically unanimous opinion. It is believed that only by means 

 of such an organization can order be brought out of the present state of 

 confusion, annoyance, and endless discord that exists in regard to the 

 "hispid question" of nomenclature. For a long time modern botanical 

 nomenclature Avas guided by the dictum of the De CandoUes, repre- 

 senting the French people, and the Hookers, and in America Asa Gray, 

 representing the English people. But as knowledge and the numbei-s of 

 workers increased the subject became too great to be dominated Ijy 

 individuals, and control passed to the great centers of activity, Berlin 

 for the Germans, Kew for the English, Geneva for the French, and 

 what has been denominated the Neo-American school, with its center in 

 New York, for most Americans; although a few strong individual workers 

 still are able to be heard in opposition to all of these. The convenience 

 of a uniform set of names for plants, and the inconvenience of repeated 



