194 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
The triangles, like some other symbols occasionally used by 
Linnaeus, presumably descended from earlier authors, and if 
they are taken to mean aguatica, and that adjective is written as 
a portion of the plantname, we are simply reverting to the pre- 
Linnaean method of polynomial (or at least trinomial) names, 
and the whole system of binomials is weakened. The date 1753 
has been generally accepted as the limit back of which we are 
not to go for names; and if Linnaeus himself did not use the 
name Alisma Plantago-aquatica or Veronica Anagallis-aquatica, are 
we justified in going back to some earlier author for such 
names? Right here is a very dangerous tendency in the usage 
of the reformers. If they will thus admit an occasional pre- 
Linnaean name which was not used in the first edition of the 
Species Plantarum, what assurance do they give us that their strict 
priority rule with a time-limit definitely set at 1753 may not at 
any time be made elastic enough to protect any whimsical excep- 
tion its advocates choose to set up? 
One of the members of the Check List Committee, speaking 
of the citation of the original author of a combination, has 
informed us that “it is no longer a question of credit, but a 
question of practical utility.”* Surely this is the ideal for 
botanical nomenclature which every serious student will com- 
mend; and we may well put to ourselves the question, is ‘“ prac- 
tical utility’’ in view or does it seem very near actual attainment, 
when we find the members of the committee which set out to 
give us a uniform system of names “at war with” their own 
rules? Has the “day of ‘law’” really begun when those with 
whom a great trust has been placed juggle with it as with a toy, 
now following this principle, now that, and ignoring at their own 
wills such candid criticisms of their methods as show the incon- 
sistencies in their work? Is the * day of ‘authority’ as such” 
indeed ended when, after one of their own associates on the com- 
mittee has publicly reprimanded them and has pointed out the 
only course for one who would live up to the principles he has 
espoused, the supporters of the Rochester Code continue to 
*9 WARD, L. F.: Bull. Torr. Bot. Club 22: 325. 

