THE BEKLIN PEOTEST. 285 



plural and the singular of the same name. According to 

 these solemn pro/cs/auts, the existence of a genus named 

 Fopnlns may not preclude the admission into the future cate- 

 gory of accepted names that of a genus PopuU. And also, 

 since Acnista and .4cw?5/ws— masculine and feminine forms 

 of the same name— are both to stand, these gentlemen would 

 fiud no cause to exclude such generic names as Ranvncula 

 and Rhamna would be, alongside of Ranunculus and Rham- 

 nus. We are sorry to be compelled to believe that Messrs. 

 Engler, Urban, and others, all of whom we profoundly respect, 

 have drawn up these xlrticles in haste such as precluded, in 

 some instances, the least philological reflection. 



Article IV, the coucluding one of what one may call the 

 proposed Berlin Code, is a very momentous one in all which 

 it contemplates. It is nothiug less than an open proposal 

 to overrule, in numerous and very clear cases, the fundamental 

 principle of priority. It is said, by those who have been 

 privileged to see the whole document, that a long list of genera 

 is given, to all of which it is proposed to deuy the right of 

 priority, for the reason that they have been long under sup- 

 pression; such as has often come to pass by the combined 

 efforts of influential botanists to deprive of their rights certain 

 less conspicuous a^ithors. While from one point of view it is 

 somewhat alarming to hear that a considerable number of 

 able and very prominent German botanists have thus openly 

 professed a virtual rejection of every ethical aspect of the 

 situation, the frankness with which the position is taken tends 

 to make it half-respectable. Their attitude is certainly an 

 honest and honorable one when contrasted with that of many 

 British and some noted American botanists, who, while pro- 

 fessing to be guided in general by the principle of priority, 

 scrupled not on any occasion to suppress the genus of an 

 opponent in favor of the later one of some friend, nor hesi- 

 tated to denounce other people's restorations of " forgotten " 

 genera, wdiile often practicing the same virtue themselves. 

 The man who, adopting wrong principles, is open and above- 

 board about it, has some title to respectful consideration. 



