262 REVIEWS. 



pertinent advice may be condensed into tliis maxim. But 

 there remain nice questions to settle with regard to the names 

 and extent of the Liliaceous genus. 



" The representing the Greek aspirate by an h was gen- 

 erally neglected by early botanists ; but now, ever since 

 De CandoUe altered Elichrysum into Helichrysum, modern 

 purists have insisted upon inserting the h in all cases ; and 

 this has been so far acquiesced in that it is difficult now to 

 object to it, though it has the effect of removing so many 

 generic names to a distant part of all indexes, alphabetical 

 catalogues, etc. Admitting the propriety of adding the as- 

 pirate in new names, I had long declined to alter old names 

 on this account ; now, however, I find myself compelled to fol- 

 low the current." Which is, on the whole, regrettable, espe- 

 cially as Alphonse De Candolle would hold out with him. See 

 the latter's comment on his Article 66^ in wiiich the remark 

 is dropped, that " we do not see why we should be more 

 rigorous than the Greeks themselves." Oddly enough, these 

 same writers who must supply the aspirate to the e omit it 

 from the 7\ and write rachis and raphe, instead of rhacMs and 

 rhaphe, — which is exasperating to lovers of uniformity. 



It is unnecessary here to cite Mr. Bentham's appropriate 

 illustration of the indivisibility of the two-worded name of a 

 plant. The proper apprehension of this, and of the para- 

 mount rule that no unnecessary new names should be given 

 to old plants, will go far to rid the science of a princij^al 

 remaining ambiguity in nomenclature. For it clearly follows 

 that when a plant has a rightful name under its proper genus, 

 the specific half of it is not to be changed because of any 

 earlier specific name under some other genus, to which the 

 plant does not belong. 



