MERRILL: ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF TAXONOMY 63 



lished for the flowering plants and vascular cryptogams alone, of which about 

 194,000 represent hopefully proposed new species, the remainder shuffles or 

 transfers from one generic name to another. The yearly average for the higher 

 groups alone is now approximately 6,500 as nezv binomials, of which about 

 4,750 represent proposed new species. This is the record of the twentieth 

 century to date. The total number of binomials published from 1753 to 1942 

 is in the neighborhood of 750,000 for the higher groups of plants alone, and to 

 this must be added those published for the cellular cryptogams; our grand 

 total should be in excess of 1,000,000. 



As to the total number of distinct and more or less "known" species, who 

 shall say? Jones has briefly discussed this matteP^ calling attention to the 

 remarkable discrepancies that occur in recent texts, with a spread in the esti- 

 mates of from 133,000 (Uphof's estimate of 1910) to 175,000 for the angio- 

 sperms alone, and concludes that the total for all known groups is in the 

 neighborhood of 335,000. Because of various complications that it is unneces- 

 sary to discuss here, I suppose that we may conclude that one guess is as 

 good as another ; but knowing something about synonymy ; something about 

 the limiting factors in the geographic distribution of individual species ; some- 

 thing about more or less universally distributed species ; something about the 

 extraordinary richness of tropical floras ; something about the remarkable local 

 endemism in various tropical areas ; something about the high percentage of 

 no^■elties that are found in all new collections from hitherto inadequately 

 explored areas ; something about those regions that, within the past four 

 decades, have been particularly rich in the crop of new species — my guess 

 is pretty close to that of Jones, and that the total number of reasonably valid 

 described species in all groups is well in excess of 300,000. Even if the num- 

 ber of valid species should be only half this total, what scientist, no matter what 

 his field, would even have the temerity to suggest that we can get along with- 

 out taxonomy and nomenclature? 



In this discussion I have deliberately been discursive rather than specific. 

 One could cite case after case of the applications of taxonomy to various scien- 

 tific and economic problems, but a few will serve to bring out the points at 

 issue. Besides those mentioned above in my discussion of botanical analogies 

 we may list the problem of the Citrus relatives ; the case of Coffea arables. Linn. 

 versus Hemileia vastatrix Berk. ; Berberis versus wheat rust ; the Pinus-Ribes 

 complex in reference to the blister rust of the white pines ; the little problem 

 of special strains in such lowly organisms as the yeasts and the fungi when 

 these organisms are basic to certain industrial processes — the list would be 

 unending, for no agricultural crop exists in which problems of plant breeding, 

 of protection against fungus diseases and insect pests do not exist. Many prob- 



^^- Jones, G. Science II. 84: 243. 1941. 



