134 



name Rhipilia has been restored. Rhipiliopsis, Rhipidodesmis, ■ 

 and Boodleopsis are new generic names proposed for groups in 

 which the authors have recognized no American species. 



The treatment of the genera and species of the Codiaceae is 

 based on years of careful study of the plants and the relevant 

 literature and is characterized by historical accuracy, by usually 

 successful efforts to examine original specimens, by a scrupulous 

 regard for nomenclatorial types in applying generic and specific 

 names, by a grasp of the really diagnostic characters, and by an 

 eminently fair and judicial attitude toward the views of other 

 workers in the same field. The authors are particularly generous 

 in their acknowledgments of the efforts of the present reviewer 

 toward an orderly and natural arrangement of the plants of this 

 family. The confusions that have resulted from insufficient 

 materials and from wrong application of the older names are 

 being gradually cleared away, but much as to the life-histories 

 and modes of reproduction of these attractive plants remains 

 to be learned by some patient investigator who may have the * 

 opportunity to keep living specimens under more or less con^- 

 tinuous observation for extended periods of time. 



The admission that the paper under review is one of the very 

 best types of a modern taxonomic monograph does not, of course, 

 preclude the possibility of an honest difference of opinion as to 

 some of the minor points involved, even among those who are in 

 possession of the same basal facts. Whether or not Avrainvillea 

 sordida Murray & Boodle p.p. is preferred to Avrainvillea levis 

 Howe is simply a matter of codes of nomenclature or of their 

 interpretation. The case is a complicated one and none of the 

 prevalent rules of nomenclature is altogether definite as to its 

 solution. But the reviewer has little doubt that many sup- 

 porters of the Vienna Rules may be found who will hold that 

 the combination Avrainvillea sordida was first effectively pub- 

 lished by Maze and Schramm and that its proper application 

 is determined by the citation of the previously published diag- 

 nosis of Udotea sordida Mont, and not, as the Gepps hold, by the 

 citation of a numbered specimen. The Vienna Rules, as is well 

 known, avoided a definite and precise application by ignoring 



