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authors believe in that code, but because they hope to keep 

 American botany from an alleged " provincialism " in not follow- 

 ing it. Americans in general, and Bostonians in particular, have 

 in times past shown pronounced evidences of " provincialism " 

 when dealing with certain European ideas of right and wrong, 

 and the writer for one hopes that a similar "provincialism" will 

 be shown in dealing with the Vienna Code. To select arbitra- 

 rily several hundred generic names as that Code does, and refuse 

 to recognize them, although entitled to recognition under every 

 rule of right and justice, is to the writer one of the most inde- 

 fensible of propositions. The writer, of course, knows that the 

 rule referred to is not one for which the authors of the work under 

 review are responsible. He only hopes that, with the liberal mind 

 they have shown in dealing with other questions, they will in the 

 future join other American botanists in repudiating it. 



Outside of the changes made necessary by recent discoveries, 

 a very large percentage of the differences between this manual 

 and other manuals of recent years, arises from this arbitrary re- 

 jection of certain generic names. The rejection of the rule " once 

 a synonym, always a synonym " accounts for a small percentage 

 of the differences, and the remaining arise almost entirely from 

 what might be called a " conservative " generic treatment. In- 

 deed, the generic treatment is rather disappointing. The authors 

 have not given us their own ideas, as they have in the case of 

 species, but have followed too closely the ideas of others. The 

 same liberal treatment which the authors have applied to species 

 would, I am sure, produce different results from those here given, 

 when applied to genera. 



While, as heretofore stated, the plan has generally been adopted 

 of prefacing the treatment of species in a genus with a specific 

 key, yet in many cases the plan of scattering a key through the 

 specific descriptions has been followed. The result is a lack of 

 uniformity, which at times is disconcerting. This matter, how- 

 ever, is of minor importance and detracts but little from the 

 merits of the work. 



So much, then, for the general features of this manual. It 

 now remains for the reviewer to give a statement of the impres- 

 sions produced on him by various portions of the work. 



