OPEN LETTERS. 
SOME RECENT PAPERS ON NOMENCLATURE. 
To the Editors of the Botanical Gazette :— Although the Rochester rules 4 
have given American botanists some tangible guide in nomenclature, and tle 
recommendations of the Harvard Memorandum have provided the believers — 
in letting bad enough alone with some means of mitigating the chaotic con- i 
ditions to which they have become accustomed, it does not seem advisable 
cease all agitation upon the subject of nomenclature. It may be true that 
the time so spent would be better spent in other lines. But if the enormous 
waste of time which will eventually be entailed by the establishment of four 
or five distinct nomenclatures in as many botanical centers may be obviated bys 
slight expenditure of time now, surely such use of it will not be entirely vail. 
My only purpose in this note is to call attention to some recent publica: 
tions of that indefatigable and zealous reformer, Dr. Otto Kuntze, who § a 
endeavoring to secure a competent international congress and through such 
a congress an international nomenclature. The botanical world, as oe : : 
Kuntze points out, now has at least four more or less distinct systems of 7 
nomenclature. Each is gaining currency in the regions under its pear a 
influence, and each, he asserts, is obstinately maintained by its pres 
who in consequence are unwilling to take any active interest in securing 2 
international code. The world has the basis of such a code in the Parisian laws 
which are to a greater or less extent at the foundation of each of ra se 
systems. But the interpretation and application of the Paris code Is i 
of generaldis agreement, and its insufficiency in its present formis unquest “eu 
In 1895 Dr. Kuntze published an article entitled “Les Besoms @ ~ 
Nomenclature botanigue”’ in which, after pointing out the danger bee 
clature arising from the existence of local codes or systems at Berlin, at : 
and in America, he puts forward nine propositions for a congress a = 
at Paris in 1900. Dr. Kuntze’s idea of what such a congress SHOW 
. i ‘ i ina 
deserves more attention than it has received. He does not be 
at once 
