Preface. 9 



never have come to an end, if the great majority of naturalists had 

 not recognized the necessity of accepting the name given by the 

 discoverer of a plant, whenever the name is conformable to pre- 

 established rules. Priority should be a fixed and positive limita- 

 tion, which admits of nothing arbitrary or partial. 



On the invitation of Alphonse De Candolle, an International 

 Botanical Congress was held in Paris in 1867, to which botanists 

 from all countries were invited, and the most important subject 

 discussed was botanical nomenclature. Mr. A. De Candolle, author 

 of the " Prodromus," presided. He had drawn up a most carefully 

 considered code of rules to govern botanists in their writings, and 

 this code was submitted to the assemblage of botanists, each rule 

 being formulated and modified as the majority deemed wise. Fi- 

 nally the whole was printed and circulated. The fundamental prin- 

 ciple of these laws was priority of publication, with adequate de- 

 scriptions. Unfortunately it was made retrospective, without any 

 sufficiently defined statute of limitations. Among zoologists the 

 Stricklandian code governs — known as the " Rules of the British 

 Association." It was signed by Charles Darwin and Professor 

 Hensley. A revision was made in 1860 by Mr. A. R. Wallace, 

 P. L. Clayton, Professor Balfour, Professor Huxley, Dr. J. D. 

 Hooker, and Mr. George Bentham. A still further revision of the 

 same occurred in 1865. In the preface to this code occurs this 

 .sentence : " jSTo one person can subsequently claim an authority 

 «qual to that possessed by the person who is the first to define a 

 new genus or describe a new species." 



The adoption of the Paris code did not meet an immediate 

 and universal acceptance. The confiict with the interests of 

 authors and publishers of works of great value, the issue of which 

 had been commenced and was still progressing, was a matter of 

 some consideration. The nonattendance of English botanists at 

 the Paris Congress was perhaps due to this cause. The annoyance 

 created by such radical changes is a very great one, and a burden 

 pressing heavily upon the older botanists, who are not so well fitted 

 to recast their memories as the younger generations, who will reap 

 the benefit of the mo'vement. There was also some friction with 

 us, even after the meeting of the American Association for the Ad- 

 vancement of Science, held in August, 1892. The botanical di- 

 vision adopted at this meeting the Paris code of 1867, with some 

 modifications. At the following meeting, in Madison, Wis., in 



