1895.] On the ‘‘List of Pleridophyta, etc.’’ 103 
Uniformity, consistency and stability of nomenclature are 
in the opinion of the writer unattainable. The sanction of 
particular associations will never make rules able to control 
all authors. There will, it is true, be those whose sanguine 
ideas lead them to follow with conscientious zeal a proposed 
new system; there will also be those who, however unpopular 
they may make themselves, will hesitate to change to what 
they are confident cannot be permanent; and there will al- 
ways be a third class, who at once set about modifying and 
improving the measures proposed. This third element is of 
course the serious obstacle to successful reform, since its ex- 
istence dispels all hope of a permanent system. It will be 
remembered in this connection that within a year after the 
Madison convention a prominent radical member, who as- 
sisted in framing the Madison rules, was publishing exten- 
sively upon an entirely different system. 
While this view of nomenclature may seem unduly pessimis- 
tic it may be said in its justification that there is a much more 
important quality of nomenclature than stability and consist- 
ency, namely that of ready intelligibility. It has of late been 
the fashion among the reforming botanists to decry the ex- 
isting nomenclature as hopelessly involved and confused. 
Strangely enough this cry comes quite as often from the 
physiologist and anatomist as the systematist. It arises, 
however, in great part at least, from a misapprehension, 
since the working monographer, who is studying the plants 
themselves, is seldom seriously troubled in understanding the 
nomenclature of former writers. The difficulties which con- 
front him are much more those of variation in plants, frag- 
mentary types or insufficient description, etc., and not those 
of nomenclature pure and simple. Nor has the writer of to- 
day any difficulty in conveying accurately his ideas of plant 
relationship through the medium of the existing nomencla- 
t For instance no writer using the well established name 
Calycanthus could be misunderstood, while the names Beurera, 
Butnera, and Biittnera, recently advanced for the genus, 
never can be more intelligible than the one in use, and the very 
fact that these three names have within as many years been 
Successively brought forward, each as the only correct desig- 
Nation of the genus, affords little encouragement to think 
that any one of them is likely long to replace the old and 
familiar name. 
Cambridge, Mass. 
