846 REPORT— 1895. 



are equally competent to the task. But this is so far from beingf the case that it is 

 sometimes all but impossible even to guess -what could possibly have been meant.^ 



In 1872 Sir Joseph Hooker ^ wrote : ' The number of species described by authors 

 who cannot determine their affinities increases annually, and I regard the naturalist 

 who puts a described plant into its proper position in regard to its allies as render- 

 ing a greater service to science than its describer when he either puts it into 

 a wrong place or throws it into any of those chaotic heaps, miscalled genera, with 

 which systematic works still abound.' This has always seemed to me not merely 

 sound sense, but a scientific way of treating the matter. What we want in 

 nomenclature is the maximum amount of stability and the minimum amount of 

 change compatible with progress in perfecting our taxonomic system. Nomencla- 

 ture is a means, not an end. There are perhaps 150,000 species of flowering plants 

 in existence. What we want to do is to push on the task of getting them named 

 and described in an intelligible manner, and their affinities determined as correctly 

 as possible. We shall then have material for dealing with the larger problems 

 which the vegetation of our globe will present when treated as a whole. To me 

 the botanists who waste their time over priority are like boys who, when sent on 

 an errand, spend their time in playing by the roadside. By such men even 

 Linnteus is not to be allowed to decide his own names. To one of the most 

 • splendid ornaments of our gardens he gave the name of Magnolia grandijlora : 

 this is now to be known as Magnolia foefida. The reformer himself is constrained 

 to admit, ' The change is a most unfortunate one in every way.' ^ It is diffi- 

 cult to see what is gained by making it, except to render systematic botany 

 ridiculous. The genus Aspidium, known to every fern-cultivator, was founded by 

 Swartz. It now contains some 400 species, of which the vast majority were of 

 course unknown to him at the time ; yet the names of all these are to be changed 

 because Adanson founded a genus, Drgopteris, which seems to be the same thing 

 as Aspidium. What, it may be asked, is gained by the change ? To science 

 it is certainly nothing. On the other hand, we lumber our books with a mass 

 of synonyms, and perplex everyone who takes an interest in ferns. It appears that 

 the name of the well-known Australian genus Banksia really belongs to Pimelea ; 

 the species are therefore to be renamed, and Banksia is to be rechristened 

 Sirmuellera, after Sir Ferdinand von Mueller ; a proposal which, I need hardly say, 

 did not emanate from an Englishman. 



I will not multiply instances. But the worst of it is that those who have 

 carefully studied the subject know that, from various causes which I cannot 

 afford the time to discuss, when once it is attempted to disturb accepted nomen- 

 clature, it is almost impossible to reach finality. Many genera only exist by virtue 

 of their redefinition in modern times ; in the form in which they were originally 

 promulgated they have hardly any intelligible meaning at all. 



It can hardly be doubted that one cause of the want of attention which 

 systematic botany now receives is the repulsive labour of the bibliographical work 

 with which it has been overlaid. What an enormous bulk nomenclature has 

 already attained may be judged from the Index Ketvensis, which was prepared at 

 Kew, and which we owe to the munificence of Mr. Darwin. In his own studies he 

 constantly came on the track of names which he was unable to run down to their 

 source. This the Index enables to be done. It is based, in fact, on a manuscript 

 index which we compiled for our own use at Kew. But it is a mistake to suppose 

 that it is anything more than the name signifies, or that it expresses any opinion 

 as to the validity of the names themselves. That those who use the book must 

 judge of for themselves. We have indexed existing names, but we have not added 

 to the burden by making any new ones for species already described. 



What synonymy has now come to may be judged by an example supplied me 

 by my friend Mr. C. B. Clarke. For a single species of Fimbristylis he finds 135 



' Darwin, who always seems to me, almost instinctively, to take the right view in 

 matters relating to natural history, is {Life, vol. i. p. 364) dead against the new 

 'practice of naturalists appendino^ for perpetuity the name of the first describer to 

 species.' He is equally against the priority craze : — ' I cannot yet bring myself to 

 reject very well-lmown names ' (ibid., p. 369). 



- Flora of British India, i. vii. ^ Garden and Forest, ii. 615. 



