264 PITTOXIA. 



r 



some of the points made, or thought to have been made by 

 some of the reviewers. I seem invited to this course by the 

 fact that more than one of the critics in Europe have taken 

 occasion, under this caption, to animadvert upon some of my 

 own views and methods in nomenchiture; which Avas of course 

 quite in place, inasmuch as I have sometimes stood in repre- 

 sentation of principles espoused by Dr. Kuntze, and have 

 advocated even a more radical treatment than his of the 

 •whole subject of tlie scientific naming of plants. 



It would be impossible, within due limits, to go through 

 the entire category of adverse comments passed on Ih-. 

 Kuntze's work within the last half year; and I am minded to 

 take up only a few points in a few of the earlier and more 

 extended reviews. 



Mr. Hemsley begins his paper by a virtual denial of the 

 existence of an international code such as that upon the 

 authority of which Dv. Kuntze believes himself to have been 

 Avarranted in the taking up and carrying on of his work. I 

 do not purpose taking up any defense of the Laws of the 

 Paris Congress of 1867 as of international binding force. 

 Most botanists respect those laws as iuternatioual, and claim 

 to be working under the guidance of them more or less 

 attentively and scrupulously; but we are not at this point to 

 find fault with the Kew botanists, whom Mr. Hemsley repre- 

 sents. Seeing they declined to take part in the congress 

 which adopted the Laws of Nomenclature, I rather admire 

 the consistency with which they adhere to the stand they 

 took at the time of the congress. It is small folk, not great, 

 who can not afford to be consistent. 



In order that his criticisms of Dr. Kuntze should be intel- 

 ligible, Mr. Hemsley thought it desirable to give "a brief 

 sketch of the recent history of plant naming." His attempt 

 to sketch such history, from 1753 down to the present can 

 hardly be called successful, I venture to think. To say that 

 from 1753, when the first edition of the Species Plantarum 

 was published, "down to within the last twenty-five or thirty 

 years, matters proceeded with tolerable smoothness," is a 



