17 INTRODUCTION. 



sometimes impossible. Exhaustive descriptions are, therefore, indespensable 

 for us to whom herbarium specimens for comparison are not sufficient and 

 types are practically inaccessible. 



Descriptions of new species ought to be accessible to all botanists and 

 are necessary, except in the case of those of certain circulation of which types 

 are at hand. Moreover, type-specimens are not things which can be widely 

 distributed ; they may be rare, or even extinct. Descriptions, however, when 

 published, can be easily obtained, and the excuse of inaccessibility is not 

 admissible. Accordingly, original descriptions should be so exhaustive that 

 they may be substitutes for type-specimens and that one can work with 

 descriptions in cases where the types are not available. In this sense, Eastern 

 botanists are in no more urgent need of exhaustive descriptions of plants of 

 which types are preserved in Western herbaria, than Western botanists are 

 of those of which types are preserved in Eastern herbaria. The same can 

 be said of all botanists either with reference to different countries or to 

 different herbaria. It is also much to be desired that the multiplication of 

 type-specimens proposed by SWINGEL* should be earned out by all botanists 

 who have to describe new species. Though the distribution of merotypes is 

 most important for taxonomic botany, yet it is far too difficult, and in some 

 cases impracticable, to make it obligatory on all authors of new species. 



Descriptions might be very short so long as the species belonging to 

 the same genus were few in number. As the species increase year after 

 year through the exploration of new territories or other causes, descriptions 

 will tend to become fuller and more exhaustive. In such cases, original 

 descriptions of two or three lines only for the sake of priority should be 

 absolutely avoided. 



It is much to be desired that the following resolutions should be con- 

 sidered at the next meeting of the International Botanical Congress to be 

 held in London next year, if the present overwhelming war is then over, 

 viz : (1), that in the case of new species, descriptions of two or three lines 

 only for the sake of priority should be as far as possible avoided; (2), 

 that authors who are compelled to describe new species from imperfect 



* SWINGLE, W. T. Merotypes as means of multiplying botanical types. 



