366 BOTANICAL GAZETTE — | MAY 
Or in other words, out of the fifty species of ferns from the northeastern 
states described in the first edition of Gray’s Manual, 21, or 42 per cent., bore 
different names in the last issue of* the same work, and more than that, eight of 
these suffered a change in the specific name also, not including those whose 
relative rank was changed from variety to species or vice versa. Surely the 
trans-Carlines will have to admit that this exceeds the 25 per cent. which 
Mr. Fernald cites as such a horrible example. But after all, what matters it 
if 99 per cent. are changed so long as the change is an evolution towards a 
more stable system based on principles less unseaworthy than the personal 
preference hit-or-miss system of Kew and Berlin? 
LuciEN M. UNDERWOOD. 

