364 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [ NOVEMBER 
of the Rochester Code, and with the former statements of Professor 
Britton himself, who in 1890 emphatically argued of “priority of 
place,” that “that is priority, I am sure” ? 
When the Rochester Code and its Madison amendments were put 
forward we were repeatedly told that their ratson d’étre was to estab- 
lish our plant-names upon a permament basis. Therefore when the 
Check List was published it was naturally supposed that the names there 
included were final. At great inconvenience to all branches of Ameri- 
can botany we have been forced, consequently, to stumble through a 
most perplexing tangle of ever-changing “permanent” names. [If all 
this confusion and inconvenience were leading us by the shortest course 
—or by any course—to stability, no one but the short-sighted would 
complain. It is true that, in spite of their frequent changes from one 
policy to another, and notwithstanding the utter abandon with which 
they trifle with the most important principles, the reformers still claim 
to be bringing us uniformity. Howcan this be? Professor Underwood 
stands firmly for priority of place, claiming that the first species in the 
genus must be taken as the type. Professor Greene has taken the same 
ground, though openly arguing against some other principles of the 
Rochester Code. Now, after agitating for years the principle of strict 
priority and more than once defining his understanding of the term, 
Professor Britton has published an argument squarely opposed ‘to the 
uniform acceptance of the first species of a complex genus as the type. 
Can it be, then, that with such hopeless diversity of opinion on the 
part of two leading reformers at the same university, they still have 
sufficient sense of humor to tell us that they are establishing unifor- 
mity? If Professor Underwood, following consistently the spirit and 
text of the Rochester Code, believes in changing “99 per cent.” of 
names; and Professor Britton, abandoning the fundamental principle 
for which he has so long argued, changes names on a radically different 
basis, will they not give us systems of names more and more hopelessly 
nlike ? 
Professor Britton declares the position taken by Professor Under- 
wood a “latter-day proposition,” thus implying that the question of 
generic types was not seriously considered at Rochester and at Madi- 
son. Yet if the Rochester Code ig the result of a “ very careful con- 
sideration,” how can this vital matter have been overlooked? How- 
ever, the Rochester Code tells us that “ priority of publication is to be 
regarded as the fundamental principle of botanical nomenclature,” 
Sali ono 
