MERRILL: ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF TAXONOMY 61 



deals. Obviously if one deals with misidentified material his findings may- 

 prove to be valueless, for future investigators will find it difficult if not impos- 

 sible to check his results. There are too'many errors in botanical literature due 

 to this lack of critical consideration of this simple basic problem, and much 

 time, and some space in our technical periodicals, has been wasted due to the 

 ignorance or the blind faith of investigators, or those who have stimulated 

 research on a particular subject, who have not considered it to be either essen- 

 tial or even worthwhile to check, or to have some competent taxonomist 

 check, the identity of the plant utilized to prove this or that conclusion. Here 

 is a horrible example : 



In 1902 there was published in one of our leading botanical magazines a 

 paper on the morphology of the flower and embryo of Spiraea that admirably 

 illustrates the importance of accurate identification. The investigator worked 

 with material representing a single species, the plant widely known among 

 horticulturists under the erroneous name of "Spiraea japonica." Far from 

 being a representative of Spiraea or even of the family Rosaceae this plant is 

 Astilhe japonica A. Gray of the Saxifragaceae. The author completed his 

 detailed study without even suspecting that he was dealing with a misidenti- 

 fied plant, from which we may assume that he could not have done much 

 bibliographic research as the dififerences between Astilhe and Spiraea are 

 remarkable. Is this blind faith in a labelled growing specimen or sheer careless- 

 ness or ignorance on the part of those who suggested and supervised the 

 work and thus victimized an innocent graduate student who had faith in the 

 knowledge of his preceptors? The net result was to discredit the student, for 

 about all he got out of it was some training and experience in laboratory 

 technique, discredit to the periodical in which the article appeared, and;, may 

 we hope, some discredit on those who sponsored the investigation. It is a 

 classical example of how not to elucidate a morphological problem, for the net 

 result merely served to stimulate the glee of the lowly taxonomists who, as a 

 group, are thoroughly satiated with the "holier than thou" attitude of some of 

 our colleagues in the laboratory aspects of botany. I am much less charitable 

 than was Rehder who called attention to the error. 



AVhat do we taxonomists think, when we observe in a physiological paper a 

 tabulation of species whose seeds will not germinate until after they are sub- 

 jected to freezing temperatures and note the strictly tropical Carica Papaya 

 listed in this category? True, pawpaw and papaya are common names of 

 Carica Papaya but pawpaw is also the common name of our entirely different 

 northern Asiinina triloba Dun. We can only assume that the seeds of Asiinina 

 were what this investigator had, for Carica is a plant entirely intolerant to 

 freezing conditions. All of which merely illustrates that we should not put our 

 trust wholly in the currently used common names of plants. After all, "What is 



