30 AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 



of writing the name, Sanguinaria Canadensis. The last word 

 should be written with a small letter, i. e., Sanguinaria canadensis. 

 Proper adjectives at least of places are not capitallized in Latin. 

 Why the rule should have been interpreted thus for specific names 

 of persons does not seem clear. As the breaches of rule seem to 

 be made by botanists not apparently in sympathy with the Vienna 

 Code and its demands in general, it would appear that occasion 

 is made to show this want of sympathy in the case in question. 

 We are expected to write the names Lisimachia Hemsleyi, Asple- 

 nium Andrewsii, Cenchrus Pabneri not because the Vienna Code 

 or any other botanical code demands it, but for the same reason 

 that we are supposed in English to write the man's name John 

 Smith with capitals. It is required by the dictates of correct 

 grammar. Even the older botanists, well versed in Latin as they 

 usually were, have always written adjective local names decapital- 

 ized, and likewise have written personal names as nouns in the 

 genitive with capital letters. Of course it is possible through the 

 blundering example of some to carry the abuse to the contrary 

 so far that it may come to be a custom in America or even else- 

 where, but it will, by competent or educated people at least, be 

 relegated to the same class of customs as that of using a singular 

 verb in connection with a plural subject. In fact misuse of prin- 

 ciples that ought to be familiar to every high school student of 

 Latin can scarcely result in much credit to our modern phytography. 



Obituary. 



The Two Howells, Botanists. — In the death of Th<>mas 

 Howell, which occurred at Portland, Oregon, on the third of 

 December, 19 12, there passed from this life one of the most re- 

 markable men who has had part in the making of West North 

 American botany. Mr. Howell was born in Missouri, 9 Oct., 

 1842, and was therefore only some weeks past seventy years of 

 age. It was as a boy of eight years that he entered the country 

 of the Far Northwest in 1850; his parents, with their several 

 children, having traversed the wide wilderness between Missouri 

 and Oregon, by ox team at that early period. 



Well though the name of Howell is known in botany, I have 

 no information as to just when, or under what influence his at- 



