INTRODUCTION. 17 



Linnaeus' Genera Plantarum unless adopted by him have been 

 regarded as devoid of prior right to consideration. In the 

 Linnaean works, page-numbers and page-positions have been 

 held to establish priority and older generic names have always 

 been maintained over newer. When genera have been com- 

 bined the older names are always retained for the new combi- 

 nations, except in such cases as Stachys-Betonica or Sorbus- 

 Pirus where the newer name received the greater number of 

 species in 1753. This is the rule proposed by Kuntze and it is 

 reasonable. 



In general the nomenclature adopted is believed to be thor- 

 oughly abreast of the times. To compile this has been a much 

 more difficult task than it would have been to accept unques- 

 tioningly the names as presented in such a book as the Watson 

 and Coulter revision of Gray's Manual (26). It is believed, 

 however, that in a list like this the eye should be cast forward 

 instead of backward, that the future should receive considera- 

 ation as well as the past. To the complaint, which has much 

 of reason in it, that all changes in nomenclature should be left 

 to monographers and should be carefully avoided by the com- 

 pilers of local floras, only one thing can be said. That is this: 

 there is no honesty in hiding behind some other's work simply 

 because one's own work is of humble nature. In local floras as 

 well as in monographs the public has a right to demand the 

 result of the best and truest convictions of its servants. It is 

 dishonest to put forward anything which one does not believe 

 to be correct, on the plea that some one else will correct it. It 

 is discreditable to conform to a custom that one does not sanc- 

 tion, that one believes is in rightful course of final extinction. 

 With this and other exigencies held in view, the writer has 

 not hesitated to uphold as strict an interpretation of the law of 

 priority as may be possible. It has been a matter of concern, 

 not so much to gratify a conservative instinct in those who 

 may have occasion to use this list, as to keep squarely in the 

 current of progress towards the better botanical nomenclature 

 of the twentieth century. Reforms are not brought about by 

 inanition or conformity. They must be center ded for even at 

 the risk of temporary disturbance of the established order. 



The details of working which must demand attention on the 

 part of the " nomenclaturist " when he considers so wide a field 

 as the names of living or fossil organisms may offer him, have 

 been indicated in many papers and volumes. Nomenclators, 



(26). Watson and Coulter: Gray's Man., 6 ed. (1890). 

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