234 THE JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
author, and that as defined the characters do not require to be 
amended (Art. 15, Priority). 
B. When, however, an older genus, hitherto ecto pee or dis- 
g. when 
lace. 
of a genus, sonal modified by a broader study of its con- 
stituent species, would be obscured in the meaning attached to the 
name of the exhumed genus of earlier date. 
For one name to displace another, it is not sufficient that it be 
earlier in point of date; it is also necessary that it be a valid one. 
The Code (Art. 60, 1) explicitly requires these two conditions. It 
clearly lays down that « priority alone cannot confer validity on a 
name which is not valid.” 
Nothing has so profoundly disturbed the stability of nomencla- 
ture than the unearthing of a legion of old genera, ill-defined or 
not defined at all (nomina semi-n uda), which the advocates of mere 
tely ignoring them. seems clear, without adducing any 
statistical proof, that an niljuiititicnt of conflicting elaims in priority 
strictly in accordance with the fundamental rules of the Paris Code 
such as here proposed, would annul an: enormous number of the 
,000 or 40,000 changes of name, often useless and unjustifiable, 
and only of late aot put forward ; and that it would establish a 
more solid basis for the nomenclature hitherto in use by the large 
majority of obeiieth 
AppENDum To Art. 66. 
neric names of the same etymology, differing only by a a. 
a (sometimes by two), are considered as homonyms; that i 
