186 BOTANICAL GAZETTE [MARCH 
small inconvenience that may result from this principle of ignoring 
the fact that a term is already established in another science would 
be counterbalanced by the appropriate use of similar terms to desig- 
nate related phenomena in related sciences. 
It is of importance in applying technical terms or inventing new 
names to take a broad view of the subject, and not use geographical 
terms, that generally refer to large areas, to signify local phenomena. 
We might mention as an example the use of the expression Austral 
zone for a phytogeographic area of North America. It has always 
been understood, however, that the term austral refers to the southern 
hemisphere, and it is as wrong to use the word in the way mentioned 
as it would be to apply its counterpart boreal to the northern part of 
Brazil or Australia. It would be greatly misleading if a botanist, 
say in Australia, would designate for instance the eastern coast 
region of that continent as the Oriental region. 
When Linnaeus brought about the reformation of systematic 
nomenclature he freed the names from the cumbrous descriptive 
phrases by assigning to each object a generic and a specific name. 
Similarly a concise mode of expression in phytogeography ought to 
be agreed upon, so as to save a great deal of verbosity which at pres- 
ent naturally must accompany an exact and complete phytogeogt aphi- 
cal description. The difficulty of presenting the results in a compact 
form would not be very much bettered, however, by adopting sud- 
denly a number of new terms, because most likely the remedy would 
in that case be worse than the disease. It may be safely said that 
by instituting a uniform method of applying necessary terms, and by 
bringing such an agreement into universal practice a long step would 
have been taken towards establishing order. 
The question of obtaining a nomenclature of an international 
character has been discussed to some extent. There can be no doubt 
as to the beneficial results that would follow the adoption of such 
names. The practicability of the application of any rule to that 
effect, however, seems somewhat doubtful. Be that as it may, W° 
are justified, I think, in looking forward to some kind of tacit agree: 
ment in this case between plant-geographers of different countries: 
Another question is how such international terms should be 
formed. Warpurc and CLeMeEnts think that only Greek and Laun 
Se ey ee Oe a 
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