42 



Lexicon Generum Phanerogamarum * 



Under this title has recently appeared a work which presents, 

 in concentrated form, the results of a vast amount of careful and 

 thorough work. There are here brought together, within the 

 the compass of 750 octavo pages, an elaborate code of nomen- 

 clature, a complete enumeration of the genera of flowering plants 

 proposed from 1737 to 1902 (and a few in 1903), and a syste- 

 matic arrangement of all those recognized as valid. It was ob- 

 viously impossible for the authors to include full citations, but 

 the date of publication is mentioned whenever it is of importance. 



According to the title-page, the author is Tom von Post, the 

 director of the seed-testing station at Upsala, and no doubt much 

 of the value of the compilation is due to his labors ; but there 

 is the further statement " opus revisum et auctum ab Otto 

 Kuntze," and to a person familiar with Dr. Kuntze's productions, 

 his impress is discernible upon every page. His connection with 

 the work lends to it a certain stamp of reliability which it would 

 not otherwise possess, yet his unique view-point makes it impos- 

 sible for any well-informed botanist to accept the results as in 

 any manner authoritative. 



Radical as are his views regarding nomenclatural reform, there 

 is perhaps no more conservative living botanist than Dr. Kuntze, 

 when it comes to the recognition of genera. This work admits 

 only 8,333 genera of living phanerogams, while at Kew, where 

 the influence of Bcntham & Hooker's masterpiece has led to 

 what is commonly regarded as extreme conservatism, the num- 

 ber recognized is not far from 9,000 ; the number allowed by 

 the exponents of the Englerian system is nearer 10,000; and 

 the principles followed by many continental and most American 

 botanists would result in the recognition of a much larger num- 

 ber. The reduction in the number of genera is readily under- 

 stood when we observe that all Ihc genera of Cacteae recognized 

 by recent monographers are reduced to a single genus, Cactus ; 

 incidentally it may be remarked that this treatment obviates the 

 necessity of determining to which of the component genera the 



* Post, T. V. & Kuntze, O. Lcxicfin (jencrum I'liaiicrogainarum, inde ab anno 

 MIjCCXXXVII. i-xlviii, I-714. .Stuttfjart, I904. 



