98 PITTONIA. 



arbitrariness on tlie part of the individual or tlie community 

 thus cringingly deferred to, investing them too with a false 

 dignity, and tempting them to play fast and loose with princi- 

 ples — as Harvard botanists have certainly been doing for half 

 a century past in matters of nomenclature in particular. 



Tiie first and most potent criticism of this new Mannal 

 which I have read implies — and rather more than implies — 

 the recognition of a disdainful attitude assumed by Dr. "Watson 

 toward some of his fellow-laborers who are among his nearest 

 neighbors. He is accused of having treated New York, New 

 Jersey and Pennsylvania — parts of the country which were 

 in need of that renewed and critical re-exploration which has 

 of late years so zealously and so fruitfully been given by the 

 Torrey Club and the Philadelphia Academy — as a ^'tabooed 

 region," in the matter of geographical distribution. This 

 possible animus of the book may seem to have come out 

 again in connection with the nomenclature of genera. The 

 editor's professed ''reasonable regard * * to the claims of 

 priority" may seem to amount to this, that he is willing to 

 adopt an old— or the oldest— name in so many cases as in 

 which the claims to priority have been set forth, and the 

 species transferred, by some foreign author away in the past. 

 It may have been upon this principle that Nelumho, Buda 

 and Belamcanda were allowed to supersede Nehimhhivt, 

 Leplgoniim and Pardanthus. The inference is plansible 

 that Tissa, Hicoria, Micrampeles, etc., might have Jiad 

 "reasonable regard" shown them as prior, respectively, to 

 Buda, Carya and Ecltinocystis, had their claims first been 

 asserted, and their species re-named, somewhere else than at 

 an American seat of present botanical activity and progress. 



If such unhappy feeling is alive at Harvard, it is well that 

 so much expression of it should involuntarily have found 

 place in the volume ; for once made manifest, its condem- 

 nation is assured. 



The renewal, after so long and such well nigh universal a 

 suppression, of so feeble a generic proposition as Elliott's 

 Strophodules, will be sure to call renewed attention to the 



