40 



botanic garden in Calcutta, or is scarcely bettered by the form 

 "Anderss." — oddly enough the less used of the two forms though 

 decidedly preferable. To return, the second objective, quite 

 fully elaborated by Hitchcock (1925) p. 19, is naturally the 

 avoidance of possible ambiguity. It is with this safeguard 

 against "driving either" of two or more ways through botanical 

 literature that we are immediately concerned. 



Davenport is abbreviated in all works examined by me to 

 the form "Davenp." — a clear, explanatory form. This abbre- 

 viation then is useful and free from misinterpretation. But since 

 the danger of confusion in such trisyllabic names as Davidson, 

 Anderson, Robinson, and so forth, is obviated on all occasions 

 by spelling out these authors' names no abbreviation is recom- 

 mended. In the case of "Davidson" its use in unabbreviated 

 form has been well established by Abrams (1923) in all instances 

 save occasional synonomy, by the Index Kewensis and the Gray 

 Herbarium Card Index. 



Another example of identical abbreviations as a possible 

 source of error was noted recently in Nepeta hederacea (L.) 

 Trevisan, abbreviated in the Index Kewensis (2:305) and ap- 

 pearing elsewhere (doubtless copied) as "Trev." This abbrevi- 

 ation is variously said to stand for Treviranus (1779-1864) or 

 for Trevisan de Saint-Leon (1818-1897) or ? "Trevisano" of 

 Willis' list (1931) p. 6. The last two explanations doubtless rep- 

 resent the same author but the first name is obviously distinct; 

 the resultant confusion is apparent. 



It may be noted that two-syllable names are quite generally 

 abbreviated without a large chance of ambiguity, as "Chapm.," 

 "Rupr.," "Trel." or "Hitchc." The last example illustrates 

 another common neglect — the omission of initials when these 

 would be useful, especially when one considers the increasing 

 international character of systematic botany with the greater 

 diffusion of printed matter and plant materials to foreign study 

 centers. There the workers may be quite unfamiliar with an 

 author whose name appears on a label or in a floristic work and 

 the initials aid unquestionably in such situations. The duplica- 

 tion of rather infrequent names among botanists, aside from 

 direct descendents, is certainly uncanny. Thus we must be con- 

 cerned with A. S. and C. L. Hitchcock, with T. J. and J. T. 

 Howell, with Thomas Nuttall and L. W. Nuttall, and with N. 



