REVI9I0 GENERUM PLANTARUM VASCULARITY. 81 



he has received benefit. The recipients of such favours may not 



be very grateful for an empty compliment. 



To avoid clashing with many of the old forms of names, Dr. 

 Kuntze has contrived some very ingenious prefixes and suffixes : 

 thus, botanists engaged in the study of the African flora are dis- 

 tinguished by the addition of -qfra to their generic term ; for 

 instance, Bolusafra, Ernstafm, Schinzafra ; American workers ha. e 

 tbe addition of -amra, such as Watsonamra, Brittonamra; Asia is 

 applied as ltoasia, Maximowasia ; India as Ringinda, RUtteyinda. 

 Titles of honour are also pressed into the service, and we find 

 Aregelia from von Regel, Sirhookera and Sirmuellera from Sir Joseph 

 Hooker and Sir Ferdinand von Mueller ; a species of Helianthus, 

 which is dedicated to Dr. Urban, has the punning title of Urbanisol; 

 and the class of compilers, those " harmless drudges," have the 

 suffix -ago, from the Latin ago, agere, as Justago ; Christian names 

 are also combined with surnames, in the fashion of Lindley's 

 Asagrcea, thus, Jamesbrittenia, Paidomagnusia ; names combined with 

 places, as Hallomuellera, Lippomuellera, that is, Mueller of Halle, 

 and Mueller of Lippstadt ; and special work is also alluded to, as 



Phaenomuellera. Xebrownia and Passaccardoa are formed by means 

 of the initials of Mr, N. E. Brown and Prof. P. A. Saccardo ; whilst 

 there are others which are simply commemorative, such as Dyero- 



phytum, Hemsleyna, Hookerina, and Nicholsoniella. 



It is saddening to think that so many years of diligent labour 

 should have been spent on work which, if accepted, would plunge 

 the science into a deeper confusion than that from which it was 

 rescued by Linnseus. Indirectly the volume must do good, as 

 showing the reckless extremes to which the M priority-at-any-price " 

 men will go in pursuit of their whims. Changes in nomen- 

 clature, if absolutely necessary, can only be made by monographers, 

 who, from their study of the entire material, are in a position to 

 speak with authority ; thus I may instance the rehabilitation of 

 Aublet's genus Tibouchina, by Prof. Cogniaux, in the Flora Brasili- 

 ensis, and in his monograph of the Melastomacea, instead of the much 

 later one, Pleroma of D. Don, which had come into vogue. The 

 main lines of nomenclature have long since been laid down, and no 

 attempt to transform them in this wholesale mannei can avail: 

 reform can only come in staid, sober fashion, as a dose of some 

 drug, which, if given at once, would be fatal, may be beneficial if 

 administered gradually. Inattention to this obvious truth has 

 obscured the real amount of good work in these volumes, lost in tbe 

 mass of proposed revolutionary changes, which Dr. Kuntze will find 

 it difficult to persuade botanists of any nationality to adopt. 



In close relation to the subject in hand, I have within the last 

 few days heard, from Prof. C. S. Sargent, the strange doctrine that 

 no name which has ever been used as a synonym can again be used 

 as the name of a genus or species. If this extraordinary notion 

 were followed it would place the entire nomenclature of plants at 

 the mercy of any reckless or incompetent writer, who might easily 

 reduce, and thus nullify, perhaps the life-work of the foremost 

 phytologists. As an instance of how this might work, take the case 



