1915.] BAILEY— NEEDS IN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY. 59 



Probably all the larger conclusions by our hypothetical editor 

 would be derived from this general situation. No longer do we 

 have the controlling authority of one man, holding the work steady 

 and maintaining a homogeneous method. I well remember a re- 

 mark that Asa Gray made about his Compositse, on which he had 

 worked so long and so lovingly, seeing the end of his time and fore- 

 seeing the change of his method. I remember also that, in those 

 days I was somewhat violently interested in nomenclature and I 

 proposed to publish on it; but Gray gently dissuaded me: it was 

 some years before I understood why. 



A Situation in Nomenclature. 



In proportion as we lose the influence of a single controlling per- 

 sonality, or of a few personalities working in an understood har- 

 mony, do we resort to arbitrary and conventional methods of 

 codification. This is well illustrated in the convulsions in nomen- 

 clature in recent years. In this country, for example, with the 

 passing of Gray, we began to give up the combination of two words 

 as the name of a plant, and to substitute the oldest specific name 

 brought down through any number of genera. Intrinsically, one 

 method is as good as the other, but we sought to arrive at uniformity 

 by rigidly adopting one of them. A train of difficulties has followed 

 this and other innovations, and instead of finding ourselves in full 

 harmony of action, with one uniform practice in nomenclature, we 

 have two or three or several practices, and to a considerable extent 

 each worker making his own. The present situation in nomen- 

 clature is a vivid illustration of the failure of arbitrary means of 

 standardization. The situation also has a social significance, as I 

 shall attempt to suggest. 



The probability is that we should have arrived at our destination 

 sooner and with no greater confusion if we had allowed the situa- 

 tion to work itself out without formal regulation, recognizing more 

 fully the principle of usage which in the end controls all language. 

 We have probably made a mistake in endeavoring to substitute 

 arbitrary priority for stability; at all events, we might have saved 

 ourselves the very amusing exercise of upsetting a well established 

 name for the purpose of substituting an older name in order that 



