192 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
observance of priority has been more generally recognized and 
deferred to than this, that a genus, as to its name at least, stands 
or falls with its type species; no rule is more indispensably 
necessary; and nothing but endless change and confusion can 
come of the neglect of it.” 77 
Numerous inconsistencies as to the treatment of species as well 
as genera have been publicly pointed out; yet here, as in case of 
some other perfectly just and logical criticisms, the effort seems 
to have been wasted upon those who are bringing us ‘‘the day 
of ‘law.’” In areview*® of the first edition of the Catalogue 
attention was called to some of these specific names. Anoda 
Javaterioides Medic., for instance, as there intimated, has a Lin- 
naean synonym in Sida cristata, while Arenaria sajanensis Willd. 
is the same as the Linnaean Svellaria biflora ( Arenaria biftora (L.) 
Watson, which is the name accepted by Dr. Britton). Yet in 
spite of these very clear cases which have been emphasized in 
print, the second edition of the Catalogue follows the first in giv- 
ing Anoda lavateroides | lavaterioides| and Arenaria Sajanensis. 
By what “law” are these names reconciled with the Rochester 
Code, and why is the public criticism of their use by the so- 
called reformers so openly ignored ? 
Another point emphasized by the same reviewer, whose 
words apparently bore too much of ‘‘authority” to influence 
the author of the book criticized, was the abundance of ‘‘ perfect 
and confessed synonyms” in the Catalogue, thus swelling its 
bulk, but decreasing by inverse proportion the confidence we can 
feel in it as the product of careful work. Several cases were 
cited (Silene Cucubalus and S. vulgaris, for example); but, as we 
have now learned to expect, the same misleading and unjustified 
duplication of names occurs in the new edition. When, how- 
ever, the same species appears under different genera, as in case 
of Aster nemoralis Ait., we must confess the least bit of surprise. 
Professor Greene, in splitting the genus Aster, revived for part of 
it the Nuttallian genius Eucephalus. Among other species which 
7 GREENE, E. L.: Pittonia 3: 129. 
ROBINSON, B. L.: Am. Nat. 32: 460. 

