JULT 22, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



105 



On Tuesday the section began the consid- 

 eration of the motions relating to the nom- 

 enclature of the " cellular cryptogams," and, 

 with the exception of Thursday, which was 

 devoted wholly to excursions, the work, to- 

 gether with the motions relating to paleo- 

 botany and phytogeography, was continued 

 throughout the week. The different groups 

 were taken up in the order in which they were 

 presented in the preliminary publication, in- 

 cluding the various motions, the result of the 

 preliminary voting by the special commissions, 

 the comments of the rapporteur general, and 

 the provisional drafts of rules. In general 

 session of the section it was voted to post- 

 pone the consideration of the bacteria dia- 

 toms and flagellates, and to take " Linnseus's 

 Species Plantarum," 1753, as the starting 

 point for the nomenclature of the Myxomy- 

 cetes. 



At the opening of the session after the noon 

 recess it was suggested that an adjournment 

 of the session be taken for an hour in order 

 to allow all the specialists in the ■ different 

 groups of cryptogams who were present to 

 hold informal conferences for the purpose of 

 agreeing upon recommendations as to dates 

 for the starting points of nomenclature which 

 would be acceptable to them. These recom- 

 mendations were presented to the section on 

 Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, 

 and were adopted as rules without further 

 discussion, no one expressing a desire to dis- 

 cuss them in general session. The majorities' 

 in favor of the different votes were very large, 

 in the case of fungi for instance 130 to 4. 

 The dates adopted, therefore, by the Brussels 

 Congress for the starting points for the no- 

 menclature of the " cellular cryptogams " are 

 as follows : 



MYXOMYCETES 



Linnffius, Spec. Plant., 1753. 



^ The voting on these questions was taken by 

 a count of the number of votes to which each 

 delegate was entitled and the number of votes 

 cast was therefore larger than the actual number 

 of delegates present. On certain general ques- 

 tions the voting proceeded by simply a show of 

 hands. 



FUNGI 

 Fries, Syst. Myc. 1821-1832, except for the 

 Uredinales, TJstilaginales and Gastero- 

 mycetes, which date from Persoon's Synop- 

 sis, 1801. 



LICHENS 



Linnaeus, Spec. Plant., 1753. 



ALG^ 



Gomont, ISTostocaceffi homocystese, 1892-1893. 

 Bornet & Plahault, iSTostocace^ heterocys- 



teffi, 1886-1888. 

 Ealfs, British Desmidiacese, 1848. 

 Hirn, ffidogoniacese, 1900. 

 Linnasus, Spec. Plant., 1753, for all other 



algje except the Chroococcaceae. 



BRTOPHYTES 



Hedwig, Spec. Muse, 1801-1830, for the 



Mosses. 

 Linnffius, Spec. Plant., 1753, for the Liver- 

 worts. 



The general position taken by the congress 

 is weU shown in the case of Bryophytes in 

 which the fundamental species Muscorum of 

 Hedwig was adopted for mosses while for 

 liverworts on which there exists no work cor- 

 responding to the species Muscorum it was 

 decided to go back to Linnffius. 



Action upon the Chroococcacese, Bacteria, 

 Diatoms and Flagellates was postponed for 

 future discussion, partly for the reason that it 

 was difficult to select satisfactory works to 

 serve as a basis of nomenclature and partly 

 because those groups have been studied also 

 by zoologists and it is therefore necessary to 

 take into consideration zoological as well as 

 botanical treatises. 



With regard to the nomenclature of the 

 imperfect fungi the following rule was 

 adopted : 



Fungi with pleomorphic life cycle. 



1. The diilerent successive stages of the 

 fungi with pleomorphic life cycle (anamor- 

 phoses, status) can bear only a single generic 

 and specific name (binome) ; that is to say, 

 the oldest, from the starting point of the 

 nomenclature of the fungi, which has been 



