88 ERYTHEA 



which other people are allowed immunity? I knew there were 

 in California botanical students of some experience who wish 

 for synonyms by which to mate easy the recognition of some 

 species under new names- But I really thought all such 

 might better learn the application of new names by attend- 

 ing to the terms of the diagnoses. There is another class of 

 botanists whom I am wont to think of as learned botanists, 

 and these usually carry a great number of synonyms in their 

 heads. I thought that in the Botano-ethnic taxonomy all 

 editors held places in this rank, and tlmt none would be so 

 humble as to claim place with those whom I expected to 

 become clamorous for synonyms. 



But again: the Gazette is unfair in demanding that I shall 

 follow the CandoUean sequence of orders. One or more of 

 that journars editors is now helping edit a new catalogue 

 which clashes more than my Manual does with that sequence. 

 Who am I that I should be condemned for using the liberty 

 taken by Gazette editors themselves, and granted to all other 

 botanists, of expressing views at variance with those who 

 maintain the antiquated CandoUean ordinal sequence? 



There is one respect in which my poor little Manual lies 

 above the Gazette^s range of capabilities of criticism; and 

 that is the one on which they have had the indiscretion 

 of attempting to say much, namely, the pre-Linnaeanism of 

 it. They protest ''against the use of pre-Linnaean names." 

 This, if words have their usual plain meaning, is the most 

 revolutionary protest which I have read in all the discus- 

 sions of questions of nomenclature. Are pre-Linnsean names 

 to be excluded from botany? These editors are not revolu- 

 tionists, and are not to be thought of as having meant to offer 

 any such protest as they say they do make. But the question 

 remains: what did they wish to say? Equally in need of an 

 explanatory paragraph is the strange concluding sentence of 

 the Manual review. It seems not to have been intended to 

 assert anything. Was it designed for rhetorical effect 



only? Mere rhetoric, to hav 

 to be of higher grade. — E. L. 



would need 



