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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXIX. No. 747 



4 and 5. To change the rule requiring Latin 

 diagnoses, to " Latin, French, English or Ger- 

 man." The rule as adopted in Vienna is bet- 

 ter, in our opinion, than the proposed modi- 

 fication. 



6. To more clearly indicate valid and in- 

 valid naming of genera and higher groups. 

 Here the committee's proposed amendments 

 certainly make the rule more definite. 



7. To provide for the disposition of the 

 species when a genus is divided into two or 

 more genera. Here again the committee's 

 recommendation is much more specific than 

 the rule in the code, and seems to provide for 

 all the cases that may come up under it, which 

 the original rule does not. 



8. To provide for the proper retention of 

 the original name in the division of a species. 

 The committee's rule is much more specific 

 and is a marked improvement upon the rule 

 in the code. 



9. To provide that priority of place upon 

 the page shall be actual priority in the case 

 of simultaneous publication of names. This 

 is so reasonable that it should meet with no 

 opposition. 



10. To provide for the rejection of certain 

 names by a more definite indication of the 

 cases. The committee would reject " homo- 

 nyms," " metonyms," " typonyms " and " hypo- 

 nyms." Their statement is better than that 

 of the code and may well be adopted by the 

 congress. 



11. To allow the specific name to be the 

 same as the generic name, as in the familiar 

 cases of Taraxacum taraxacum, Linaria lin- 

 aria, etc. The Vienna Code requires the re- 

 jection of the specific name in such cases, in 

 spite of the law of priority. The committee 

 very properly regard this as " an unfortunate 

 exception to the general law of priority." 



On the whole it seems that this committee 

 of American botanists is warranted in pre- 

 senting its motions for amendments. With 

 the exception of the fourth and fifth, relating 

 to the diagnoses of new groups, we hope that 

 these motions for amendments will be adopted. 



Charles E. Bessey 

 The University of Nebraska 



SPECIAL ARTICLES 

 a discussion of some of the principles gov- 

 erning the interpretation of pre-per- 

 soonian names, and their bearing 

 on the selection of a starting- 

 point for mtcological 

 nomenclature' 

 If there is any one fact which more than 

 others has become increasingly evident during 

 the last thirty years in the study of fungi it is 

 that a thorough examination of their micro- 

 scopic characters is necessary for the cer- 

 tain determination of most of the species. 

 The older systematists based their species en- 

 tirely upon external characters. While the 

 spores of fungi were early observed, they were 

 regarded as' of no importance systematically, 

 and even as late as 1849 Fries himself forcibly 

 stated that in the whole family of Discomy- 

 cetes no natural genera could be based on car- 

 pological characters. In the decade between 

 1860 and 1870, however, influenced by the work 

 of the Tulasne brothers and of de Bary, 

 systematists turned their attention more seri- 

 ously to the study of microscopic characters, 

 and it at once became evident that important 

 diagnostic marks were to be found in struc- 

 tures too small to be seen with the unaided 

 eye. The great amount of careful morpho- 

 logical and developmental work which has 

 been done among the fungi during the last 

 thirty-five years has only emphasized the im- 

 portance which should be attached to micro- 

 scopic characters in distinguishing genera and 

 species in this group. To such lengths has 

 this tendency developed that in recent years 

 whole systems of classification have been pro- 

 posed based almost entirely on microscopic 

 features, and in the eyes of all workers such 

 characters have come to be regarded as the 

 most important available bases for generic 

 and specific distinction. 



This method of study has frequently de- 

 veloped the fact that two or more plants, ex- 

 ternally indistinguishable, really represented 

 as many different species or even distinct 

 genera. Illustrations of this condition are 

 'A paper read before the Botanical Society of 

 America at its meeting in Baltimore, December 

 31, 1908. 



