April 23, 1898.1 



SCIENCE. 



561 



* * " Botanical nomenclature means, oi- 

 ought to mean, the same name for the same 

 group of plants, for all botanists of what- 

 ever language or nation. This is agreed to 

 by all. And it is in a general way as uni- 

 versally conceded that, under certain limi- 

 tations, and with important exceptions, the 

 scientific name of every plant species is de- 

 -termined by the principle of priority of pub- 

 lication." 



Dr. Greene then states precisely three 

 important and fundamental nomenclatural 

 principles, as follows : "(1) The employ- 

 ment of Latia as the language of plant 

 names ; (2) priority of publication, and (.3) 

 ihe binary character of all species names 

 as being made up of a genus name of 

 -one term and a species name of one 

 term." A plant is, therefore, to bear the 

 -oldest published Latin generic name of one 

 term, copabined with its earliest published 

 Latin specific name of one term. These 

 rules, while plain and evidently just, involve 

 Tnany difficulties in their application. 

 Thus it happens that it is often difficult to 

 determine what are the limits of many of 

 the Linnsean genera as given in the ' Species 

 Plantarum' of 1753, on account of the fact 

 that Linnseus otten compiled without crit- 

 ical examination. In the course of his dis- 

 cussion Dr. Greene suggests the advisability 

 of taking Tournefort's ' Institutiones ' of 

 1700 as the starting point for the genera of 

 plants. 



In regard to specific names much con- 

 fusion has arisen on account of the insuffi- 

 ciency of so many of the Linntean 

 <lescriptions, and this can be helped in 

 many cases only by a careful study of the 

 •earlier botanical authoi-s, Dodonseus, Ray, 

 Bauhin, Clusius, Plukenet, Micheli, Dil- 

 lenius, Haller, Le Vaillant and Gronovius. 

 ■" Just as the master of Latin philology 

 must have close acquaintance with each 

 one of the ancient Latin authors, so should 

 -every botanical scholar who would per- 



fectly understand Linnseus be somewhat 

 philologically familiar with every one of 

 those standard pre-Linnsean authors to 

 whose descriptions of plants Linnajus refers 

 us on every page of his." 



Charles E- Bessey. 

 The University of Nebraska. 



CURRENT NOTES ON PHYSIOGRAPHY. 

 GEOGRAPHY OF INDIAN TBRKITOEY. 



A thesis presented to the Department of 

 Geology of Stanford University by N. F. 

 Drake on ' A Geological Reconnaissance of 

 the Coal Fields of the Indian Territory ' 

 (Proc. Am. Phil. Soc, XXXVI., 1897, 326- 

 419, map) contains a number of geogi-aph- 

 ical notes on a little known district. The 

 Ouachita mountain system extends into the 

 territory south of the Arkansas and Cana- 

 dian rivers, repeating the features described 

 in Arkansas by Griswold ; sharp mono- 

 clinal ridges on close folded structures, and 

 fl^at- topped mountains, often synclinal in 

 structure, where the folds are more open ; 

 all with an east and west trend, and con- 

 tributing to the western extension of Ap- 

 palachian-like disturbance and topography, 

 as explained by Branner {Amer. Jour. Sci., 

 November, 1897). A plateau with broad 

 uplands and narrow valleys enters from the 

 Ozark region on the northeast as far as the 

 Grand and Arkansas rivers ; repeating the 

 features described for Missouri by Marbut 

 (Science, V., 20), the ' Boston mountains,' 

 a plateau with ragged promontories and 

 outliers presenting the strongest relief in 

 this division. The Great Plains enter from 

 the northwest into the angle between the 

 Grand and Canadian rivers ; an extended 

 area of moderate relief, descending gently 

 eastward, and here and there falling in ter- 

 race-like escarpments, 50 to 100 feet high, 

 as the harder strata are passed ; thus re- 

 peating features so well described by the 

 University of Kansas Survey on the North. 

 (Science, V., 945). 



