242 



NATURE 



[January ii, 1894 



appeal to any unprejudiced mind. If nomenclature dates 

 from Linnsus, who founded the system, naturally 

 the first editions of his works dealing satisfactorily with 

 genera and with species, are respective points of de- 

 parture for the names of these, and in dealing with the 

 species described by subsequent authors a similar course 

 must be pursued. This code has been the tradition of 

 the representative British botanists, and to it the former 

 leaders of American botany also subscribed. It is the 

 simple rule that priority determines the name. But, 

 as with other rules framed by frail humanity for its 

 guidance, this, if applied with rigorous inflexibility, 

 would defeat the object it is designed to serve. To 

 drop a name which has become generally accepted as 

 the designation of a plant, and with which it is always 

 associated, and take up for it some unknown name, 

 simply because some one has discovered that this one 

 preceded that by a few months in publication, or 

 because it occurs a few lines earlier on the page of the 

 same work, may mean logical adherence to the rule of 

 priority, but is subversive of the purpose of nomenclature. 

 Conformity with the code has therefore on the part of 

 the botanists mentioned been governed by circumstances 

 of practical expediency. They have kept in mind that 

 nomenclature is only an aid to, not the aim of, the study 

 of plants, and that a theoretically perfect nomenclature 

 is inconsequent by the side of one which in practice ad- 

 mits of the ready recognition of the plants named; they 

 have thought more of the identity of the plant and of 

 its relationships than of the technical accuracy of the 

 name under generally guiding principles, and have not 

 therefore hesitated to cite older and obscure names as 

 synonyms, and to ignore them if their use would 

 replace others which had come to be generally and 

 widely known. This principle of expediency and con- 

 venience, it has been said, is an unstable one, and to 

 workers in fields of science in which it is not admitted 

 may appear to be a mistake. But in the past of 

 botany, in the hands of men really endeavouring to 

 increase the general store of knowledge of plant-life, 

 it has worked well. No doubt inconsistencies and 

 mistakes may be found in the works of botanical 

 writers who have acted upon it, traceable to a laxity which 

 it introduces ; but it has been a strong conservative 

 element in nomenclature, whereas the application of 

 the rule of strict priority has been most unsettling. For 

 there are, unfortunately, men endowed with antiquarian 

 zeal mated with sentiment which deems the naming of a 

 species honour, and of a genus glory, who ferret through 

 the pages of forgotten or unknown tracts or obscure 

 journals, which perchance may contain a name, given by 

 an author whose work has perhaps had no effect whatever 

 upon the progress of the science, with which, under strict 

 priority rules, they may supplant one custom has made 

 part of popular language ; or who rake out of correspond- 

 ence (alas, that its preservation should serve such end) 

 the history of private quarrels and jealousies of men 

 who^e names, as the roil of time has handed them down 

 to us, carry only the attribute of scientific distinction, 

 with the object of showing that one may have ignored 

 the work of another, preceding it by a ^^"^ days or weeks, 

 and that consequently firmly established names must 

 give place to those which strict priority demands. It is 

 MO. I ^63. VOL. 49J 



through such work, revelling in the overturning of 

 authorities, which does not contribute to the progress of 

 botany, and is essentially non-botanical, that many of 

 the difficulties in nomenclature arise, and it merits the 

 censure of all true botanists. Such work proves the 

 wisdom of the botanists who have held aloof from binding 

 agreement to strict priority rules, and against the load of 

 synonymy and the confusion the strict priority rule 

 would in these ways inflict upon plant-nomenclature, 

 expediency and convenience are the protection to which 

 appeal can be made. We are glad to note that in 

 the " Index Kewensis " discretion has been exercised, and 

 familiar and generally known names have not been sunk, 

 although under the strict priority rule they should have 

 been replaced by other and obscure ones. 



That the procedure in the Index will meet with the 

 universal acceptance of botanists may be hoped for ; it 

 cannot be expected immediately, when we have regard to 

 the existing divergencies upon fundamental points. The 

 laws of nomenclature formulated by the Paris Botanical 

 Congress of 1867, made strict priority the basis of 

 nomenclature, and were so generally adopted by syste- 

 matic botanists out of England, that little was heard of 

 the subject in subsequent years until a revolt of the 

 younger American botanists against the practice of their 

 former leaders — adherents to the line of expediency — 

 brought it so prominently under notice a few years ago, 

 that it has since been a staple of discussion in some 

 botanical journals. Strict priority was the cry of the 

 Americans, and some of them, with a zeal tinged with 

 pedantry rather than bred of thought for the good of the 

 science, endeavoured, in the application of the rule, to 

 carry back to Virgil, Catullus, and other classical writers 

 the scientific nomenclature of plants. But the event 

 which most roused the attention of European botanists 

 was the publication, in 1891, by Otto Kuntze, of his 

 " Revisio generum plantarum " — a book remarkable no 

 less for the industry and linguistic powers it exhibits 

 than for its audacity and unconscious humour. Having 

 assumed the role of a reformer of nomenclature, the 

 author begins business by changing the names of some 

 thousand genera and thirty thousand species, the new 

 ones being only certified by the coincidently significant 

 initials O. K. ! As a curiosity of botanical literature the 

 book will be historical ; meanwhile its menace to syste- 

 matic botany has had the effect of drawing from the 

 Berlin school of systematists, which in recent years has 

 shown so much activity, a statement'of views v/hich, after 

 circulation, was submitted to the meeting of botanists 

 at Genoa in 1892. 



If the result of all the discussion and conference that 

 has taken place has not been the establishment of a 

 common agreement, they have at least served to bring 

 out the points of divergence of view. We cannot, of 

 course, discuss here the various issues upon which 

 botanists are disagreed on this subject, but we may point 

 out that the differences are mainly upon the starting 

 point of nomenclature and the import of the specific 

 name. The German school, which appears to carry 

 with it a considerable bulk of continental opinion, pre- 

 fers 1753 as the starting point for both genera and species 

 to the date adopted in the Index, but makes an im- 

 portant declaration of adhesion to the principle of 



