Igor] BRIEFER ARTICLES 361 
by Hoffmann in 1795 as Polypodium Robertianum, the latter by Pursh 
in 1814 as Chetlanthes dealbata. In 1896 Professor Underwood had 
already published five editions of a work on North American ferns, and 
he was consequently in a position to know of the earlier conceptions 
and treatments of these plants. At that time he was publishing accord- 
ing to his interpretation of the Rochester Code, and the names thus 
published, we were assured, were those which would stand. Yet after 
having established (as he supposed) these names according to strict 
priority principles he has found occasion to alter 25 per cent. of them. 
Has his application of the Rochester Code brought uniformity ? 
In his “ Open Letter ” Professor Underwood shows very conclusively 
that “when its bald statements are unqualified,” “the deadly parallel” 
“seems to mean more than the facts will warrant.” For, avowedly 
with the purpose of showing that “the personal preference hit-or-miss 
system of Kew and Berlin” is bringing us unwarranted confusion in 
plant names, he places in parallel columns twenty-one fern names 
which appeared in the first edition of Gray’s Manual and the twenty-one 
more or less dissimilar names for the same plants in the séxrA edition. 
By the thoughtless reader, with “its bald statements . . . . unquali- 
fied,” this comparison might seem completely to dispose of my criticism 
of the recent changes of names made by Professor Underwood. Yet 
it should be borne in mind that such comparisons may “mean more 
than the facts will warrant.” Professor Underwood implies that the 
application of the combined Berlin and Kew rules is responsible for 
the changes between the first and the sixth editions of the Manuad. 
Can it be that he “forgot” that the first edition was issued in 1848, the 
Jfth edition (Pteridophyta by D. C. Eaton) in May, 1867, and the sixth 
edition in 1889, a// before the Berlin rules were formulated in 1897? 
It was three months after the fifth edition of the M/anua/ went to 
press that the Paris convention of 1867 was held and the DeCandol- 
lean Code was drawn up. Consequently the sixth edition (1889), by 
‘Watson and Coulter, was the only one published after the adoption 
of the Paris Code of 1867. Furthermore, since even this edition was 
published eight years before the rules of the Berlin botanists, a com- 
Parison of the first edition (1848) and this sixth edition (1889) is no 
very logical proof that the Berlin rule of 1897 is “ unseaworthy.” 
The fact is, that the names in no edition of Gray’s Manual have 
been based on the combination of the Berlin rule for genera and the 
so-called Kew rule for species, which was recently advocated by me. 
