284: PITTONIA. 



a cliaracter to interfere as little as possible after all, with the 

 unfounded bat long settled prejudice tliat Linnseus was the 

 greatest of botanists. Bat the phrase of these learned men of 

 Berlin does plainly enough — and in spite of the studied con- 

 servatism of their expression "not superior" — ^make him out 

 scientifically inferior " to Tournefort, Bivinus and many other 

 botanists" of pre-Linn^ean times. It is one of the worthiest 

 concessions made by a symposium of botanists in recent years ; 

 and the fact admitted is not without a strong bearing upon 

 the whole controversy respecting starting-points for genera. 

 I have often set forth the same view, but hitherto without an 

 open second to my proposition. 



The second Article of the protest relates only to the exclii- 

 sion of nomina nuda and seminuda. A new name, without 

 either diagnosis or known equivalent, is of course a thing 

 of which no nomenclature can take cognizance, whether it be 

 that of a genus or species; and such names ought never to 

 be printed.^ But the '' nomina seminuda'' of the German 

 botanists, if I understand what they mean, are a very different 

 matter indeed; and against the rejection of such, I would 

 insist upon all I have said at page 279 preceding; and maeh 

 more might be said. The term ''seminuda^' itself is a falsi- 

 fication if applied to new names with full equivalents given. 

 The reference in most cases is clearly and distinctly made to 

 a diagnosis somewhere already in print. 



Proposition III is that "Similar names are to be retained 

 ['conserved'] if they differ by ever so little in the last 

 syllable." It is to be hoped that the authors themselves have 

 seen, before this, bow the very simplest rudiments of Latin 

 grammar invalidate this proposition. The very first instance 

 cited by them, that of Adenia and Adeniiim, is a case of the 



^ Ov\r British friends are doing well to continually inveigh against the 

 printing of new nomiaa nuda. But American botanists keep up the 

 practice. Even such strong advocates of good principles as the editors 

 of Bulletin of the Torrey Clnh are still censurable on this score ; see 

 volume xix. p. 239 (Aug 1892), where the name of a new species is 

 priuted, the diagnosis promised fur the future. 



