268 AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 
fessor of Anatomy. Probably the principal reason why no record 
of plants was made sooner of our locality is that the large collection 
of our local plants made by the Rev. J. Carriere, together with 
a large herbarium of European plants and other exchanges, and 
practically the whole biological museum of the University was 
destroyed by fire in 1879. About this time he became professor 
of botany at the College of St. Laurent near Montreal, Canada, 
and not very many specimens of local flora were added to the 
herbarium since his departure until rather recently. 
We have preferred the title prefixed rather than the stereo- 
typed “List” or “Flora” of S. W. Michigan and N. W. Indiana, 
because notes and observations as we have decided to include, 
would seem foreign to a mere list. In the matter of nomen- 
clature, too, there may be what some will consider unwarranted 
peculiarities. Nomenclature under the systems of present ex- 
pediency is largely a matter of opinion of a person, or aggregate 
of individuals many or perhaps most of which in the congresses 
which formulated these systems were expected to contribute a 
maximum of assent and vote, and a minimum of reason. In 
fact the votes that decided 1753 as the beginning of our botanical 
nomenclature were in some instances given and accepted from 
botanists in conclave so inadequate of scientific decision that some 
then had never even seen the inside of the Linnaean Species Plan- 
tarum of 1753! Being a matter largely of opinion no system 
of expediency that we have yet met with is even self-professedly 
or practically logical. No code more or less widely adopted with 
reservations by countries and sections and factions, merits even 
the encomium of honestly attempting to be consistent, no matter 
how many have given their support, and our systems of today 
are for the most part agreements more or less illogically formulated 
and assented to by a clique or clan for-temporary expediency. 
No code of nomenclature can be logical that presumes to begin 
with an artificial ‘‘starting point,’’ because it presumes dogmatically 
to rule when science began. Any code that accepts impossible 
or stupid names because they enjoy priority alone does not, on 
the other hand, deserve the approbation of the scientist, nor 
certainly will win the approval of coming ages when we shall be 
judged logically on our real merits. Indisputably proved abso- 
lute historical priority alone as a principle deserves the consent 
of a reasoning mind. ‘This is now admitted by our best botanists, 
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