THE MAKING OF MANY SYNONYMS. 999 
one objection made, that restoring old specific names increases 
synonymy. 
At this late day, when synonyms are already so multitudi- 
nous that no standard authors attempt to give them all, or 
even more than one or two of the leading ones, and when the 
whole subject is left, or soon must be, to bibliographers and 
index makers, the matter of a few more is a thing of small 
importance, so long as we are progressing a little in the 
direction of fixed names for species. That is a consummation 
so desirable, for many a reason, that by the side of it, the 
making of a few score synonyms for bibliographers to amuse 
themselves with, sinks into insignificance. 
But, the outery against new synonyms comes loudest from 
that very shore whenee there is soon to be sent forth upon 
the sea of plant lore, such a cargo of them as was never before 
got together in a single generation, or bound up in successive 
volumes under one title. The new Index, or Nomenclator, 
much talked about and oftener wished for, will inevitably 
create new synonyms almost by the thousand. As we under- 
stand it, all the known species of plants are to be named 
after the generic limitations of Bentham and Hooker’s great 
' treatise. Now it is accepted generally, or ought to be, that, 
however useful such a work as the Genera Plantarum must 
be, its authors’ decisions about the limits of genera, cannot 
be received as final. Their work is done in an herbarium ; 
and the plant world has not been so made that its problems 
can be mastered by mere dealing with cords upon cords of 
dried specimens, which are often wretched fragments. No 
respectable author of a local flora, no master of the vegetable 
products of one state or country, familiar with the plants and 
trees themselves, ever yet proved himself able to adopt the 
genera or the species as set forth in great general works. It 
is a principle recognized by the greatest botanists, that the 
final authority upon a genus or a species is the man who has 
dwelt and labored in the field where the several genera and 
species are indigenous. No botanist in North America, or in 
South America, in Australia or Hawaii, in Japan or Persia, 
