150 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
of botanical illustration. He contended that photoeram was the 
only means by which the lines and masses of our flowering plants— 
which botanists aps and arrange plants into orders, genera, and 
species—could be readily reproduced. He explained the various 
technical processes and apparatus necessary for successful plant 
photography, and alluded to the difficulties rey from the 
photography of plants in their sate habitats, &c. His remarks 
were illustrated by means of lantern-slides. 
Ar the meeting of the Linnean alot on March Ist, Mr. C. B. 
Clarke read a paper on ‘‘ Botanic Nomenclature.’ He showed that 
the new rule adopted at Berlin—not to disturb names that had fifty 
a fair pore agreement in nomenclature. The American botanists 
1 tem led ‘ 
follow a new system which aims at finality on a so-¢ ‘non- 
shifting basis” in which the genus or i as the case may be, 
is established on a type-specimen r. Clarke’s paper ie devoted 
mainly to showing by mlbltea instances that this system did not 
ensure finality: tha errors in det ing what should be 
ranked as the type are enough to discredit the system; and t 
author commented he disputed question whether a plant 
0 
the oldest specific name it bears in the genus in which it is now 
placed. 
Most of the points ea in Mr. Clarke’s paper have been dealt 
with from time to time in this os and it is therefore hardly 
necessary to discuss isan It has been shown more than once, and 
indeed is generally recognized, that tama and Hooker had no 
” of nomenclature, beyond a general notion of ‘‘ con- 
ell us—what is to take their mgt e one examp 1e 
diagnoses published by Robert Brown, admirable as they are, and 
amply sufficient when written, are often very brief, and do not 
suffice for differentiation from the very numerous species 8 Ma 
since his time; " is only by consulting the ample series of speci 
preserved in his herbarium (now in the frente collection) “that 
‘finality on a Hotsehifiing basis’ can be attained. 
= Neiges is recorded at an Sa age of Dr. Apoxro 
Ens many years Director of the National Museum at 
Gardens, Venenuela He contributed several papers to the earlier 
volumes of this Journal and to other botanical and natural history 
peri ial 
