

SOME RECENT PUBLICATIONS AND THE NOMEN- 
CLATORIAL PRINCIPLES THEY REPRESENT. 
M. L. FERNALD. 
THE second edition of Mr. Heller’s Catalogue* presents, as 
a piece of presswork, a great improvement over its predecessor. 
For thus materially improving the dress of his work the author 
is certainly to be commended. The book also contains a very 
large increase of species over the first edition; and for bringing 
together hundreds of recently published names, where they can 
be readily consulted, the compiler should have the gratitude of 
students of systematic botany. In a work of this sort, neces- 
sarily accomplished largely by compilation, monographic treat- 
ment of recent and doubtful species can not and should not be 
expected; but there can be no question that the compiler of a 
check list or catalogue owes to the public the product of the 
best light he has upon the species with which he deals. Mr. 
Heller’s new Catalogue, especially, representing the so-called 
reform tendencies in American botany, should be judged pri- 
marily by the degree of adherence to or divergence from the 
principles which he has taken upon himself to exploit. This 
second edition, too, should be judged by the degree of readi- 
ness shown by its author to correct such obvious errors and 
inconsistencies in his preceding work as have been definitely 
called to his attention in print. 
It is a question which is the point of greater significance to 
Systematic botany—the hopeless tangle of nomenclatorial prin- 
ciples here exhibited, or the tendency, by no means new, to 
break through the traditional though necessarily vague barriers 
Separating the minor categories to which plant-variations may 
be assigned, namely, the species, variety, and form. That the 
author of this Catalogue, and numerous other American botanists, 
*Catalogue of North American plants north of Mexico, exclusive of the lower 
cryptogams. By A.A. HELLER. Second edition. Issued November 10, 1900. 
1901] 183 
