246 



Dr. Blake in his studies of Linnaean species while in London a 

 few years ago. One of these I have supposed might be based 

 on some ancient error or mixture; that is the application of the 

 name EleocJmris capitata to what we have long been calling 

 Eleocharis tenuis; it seems incredible that Linnaeus could have 

 meant to describe the spikelet of that sedge as subglobose and 

 to have assigned the name capitata to it. Linnaeus reached 

 some results which seem queer to us, like his classifying Lysi- 

 machia terrestris as a Mistletoe and Comptonia peregrina as a 

 Liquidambar, but these flukes are brilliant as compared with 

 calling the spikelet of Eleocharis tenuis subglobose. 



It goes without saying that the nomenclature of the District 

 Flora follows the American Code, rather than the so-called 

 International Code forced down the throats of the Vienna 

 Botanical Congress by a German majority and further manipu- 

 lated by the same majority at the Brussels Congress; we can 

 well understand why the French have never recognized it as 

 valid, and why anybody but Germans or Austrians should so 

 regard it has always been a puzzle, especially as the American 

 Code is much more logical and cuts out autocracy. Internation- 

 alism is proving a dangerous principle to play with, and in many 

 aspects has much to condemn it. 



The Washington botanists have followed the American Code 

 consistently in almost every item except the use of duplicate 

 binomials; they do not say why these have not been used; 

 zoologists have used them for many years without losing sleep, 

 and Sassafras Sassafras runs well with Corvus Corvits. We must, 

 I suppose, conclude that our colleagues of the fifteen-mile 

 circle around the national Capitol, or most of them, simply do 

 not like to say Catalpa Catalpa, although by refusing such 

 diction they lose the valuable suggestion that Linnaeus named 

 the tree Bignonia Catalpa. Or may it be that they are influenced 

 by the line of thought advanced by Engler at the Vienna Con- 

 gress when we asked him why he objected and he told us prin- 

 cipally that such names had made some of his students laugh! 

 And so the risibility of juvenile Huns prevented their adoption 

 at that highly amusing convocation. 



N. L. Britton. 



