148 NATURAL HISTORY BULLETIN. 



parts of other genera) has been divided and re-divided into 

 overlapping genera until the application of the strict 

 laws of priority to the nomenclature of the group has been 

 made extremely difficult, if not in many cases impossible. 

 The confusion in nomenclature has been due only in part 

 to improper citations, — it results more frequently in its 

 most serious phases from the fact that the grouping of the 

 varied and more or less blending characters of these plants 

 has been left largely to the judgment of individuals, and of 

 course each new grouping has resulted in the displacement 

 of old names, or in their application in a sense different 

 from that in which they were first used. In consequence 

 comparatively few generic names are now used strictly in 

 the original sense, and most of our ferns have been shifted 

 from one genus to another until a cumbersome and con- 

 fusing synonymy has resulted. 



It is absolutely impossible to establish a stable nomen- 

 clature until pteridologists reach some substantial agree- 

 ment concerning the limits of genera. Until this is done 

 in the more confusing (and hence confused) groups all 

 the binomials which are employed for members of such 

 groups must be considered provisional. The more recent 

 classifications, which are by no means in harmony, indicate 

 that a thorough systematic discussion of the best grouping 

 of class, ordinal and generic characters is desired above 

 any mere juggling with names. This discussion should be 

 sufficiently comprehensive to include the morphology, 

 histology, habit and fruit of the sporophyte, and the 

 development and correlation of both oophyte and sporo- 

 phyte, and all these should be collectively employed in 

 settling so far as this is possible the vexed questions of 

 rank and relationship. So long as only a portion of these 

 characters is employed confusion is inevitable. 



Another source of confusion is to be found in the 

 attempt to apply rigidly various "codes of nomenclature" 

 which in every case are recognized by only a part of the 



