BOTANICAL LITERATURE. 211 



bibliographical and chronological reference, therefore, it 

 should be in the library of every worldug botanist. 



In assigning appellations to the natural families, the law 



of priority has governed the author, as it ought to govern all 



writers of such treatises. There is no renson why a generic 



name should be adopted in deference to its priority,^ and 



ordinal names be selected according to oue's individual opinicni 



of general suitability. But in his effort to give due credit to 



the actual founders of Natural Orders, he has often gone to 



the extreme of amending or altering a name in such wise that 



it becomes really another name, and one which can not be 



credited to even the mind, much less to the printed document 



of the author concerned. Assuming, as Baron von Mueller 



mnst, that this course of procedure needs an apology, he 



gives one. It is found in the preface to the first edition of 



this admirable Census, where he says: "If, for instance, 



Haller is regarded as the earliest indicator of CyperaceiP, it 



must be conceded that his wording of the order was "Cypen ' 



in 1742. * * If, however, * * we ascribe it under the name 



of Cyperace* t^ De Candolle, as defined in 1805, or to St. 



Hilaire as circumscribed in the same year, or to A. L. de 



Jussieu who in 1789 adopted the same order as Cyperoidife, 



then we evidently actunjustly in not recognizing prior clRims. 



I rejoice in Baron von Mueller as in one out of a few emmen 



botanists of our time who dare to emphasize the ethical 



relations of scientific labor. We have now, at least m America, 



a very fair showing of botanical authors who insist upon the 



rule of priority from the utilitarian point of view_; who take 



tins course because it is the only one which promisees to give 



stability. Justice, as a motive in every human action, is 



surely the broader and nobler motive, and therefore the safer 



' one in the long run at least. But strict justice as I view it, 

 will everywhere forbid our ascribing to any author a name, 

 or even a syllable, which he did not employ. The "C^i..'r. 

 of Haller is simply identical, as a name, with Cyperus of 

 which it is only the plural form. The same name can not be 

 applied to a natural order and also to a genus. The mistake 



