192 
Toward the close of her paper Doctor Stopes indulges in what 
she is pleased to call certain “moral reflections as to the value 
of most determinations of fossil plant impressions," and is dis- 
tressed to conclude that many of these determinations are wholly 
without proper biologic authenticity. Asa means for separating 
the sheep from the goats Doctor Stopes proceeds as follows: 
"It seems a good opportunity to urge that the lists published by 
paleobotanists should be printed in two forms, and that the 
names of species of leaves, stems, etc., of which there is a reason- 
able security of determination, should be differentiated from 
those in which there is no guarantee at all that the actual nature 
of the plant has been discovered. Any tri-nomial system is 
cumberous, but those who publish on fossil plants might print 
their names in type of two kinds, which would indicate which 
species were doubtful. I would like to suggest that, instead of 
knowledge about them is mediaeval, of the Dark Ages, and would 
further save the inconvenience of tri-nomials, while it would 
indicate immediately the difference between the established and 
the doubtful determinations. As information occurred about a 
specimen it could readily be transferred to the clear Latin italics." 
Applying this suggestion to Ophioglossum granulatum Heer, she 
adds: "Any worker in another branch of science, seeing О. 
granulatum in Gothic, would be warned at least to look into the 
grounds for the determination for himself before he—let us 
imagine—used the record for his stratigraphic work in correlating 
horizons or in writing up the early history of Ophioglossaceae.” 
This statement shows not only an astonishing misconception 
of what a tri-nomial means, and the principles and uses of strati- 
graphic paleobotany, but leads to interesting speculations as to 
the practical application of the plan. Suppose, for example, we 
have a fossil plant in which the genus is known with practical 
certainty, but we are troubled to decide whether the species is a 
living one (such an example is afforded by the Fort Union Corylus 
americana). Shall we print the genus in Italic and the species 
