"endosperm. 1 ' 37 



adequate description of the plant intended; it is, moreover, a 

 manifest advantage to be able to retain such widely-known names 

 as Juncus conglomerates, when this can legitimately be done by merely 

 amending the authority for such name. Had Marsson renamed 

 the plant before any adequate description had been published under 

 the old name, his name would then undoubtedly have claimed 

 adoption. I might have accepted the name for restricted Spar- 

 ganium rarnosum, kindly proposed by Dr. Boswell for the 'London 

 Catalogue'; but in the face of Curtis's sufficient description and 

 plate, I did not feel able to do so. 



Note. — Since this paper was communicated in November last, 

 several articles on Nomenclature have appeared ; as well as one by 

 Mr. Druce, on Scotch plants, in the January number of this 

 Journal. In the last-named paper the mystery of Mr. Druce's 

 earlier name for Sparganium affine is explained. Apparently Mr. 

 Druce does not know that S. natans is a distinct species, — far more 

 distinct, indeed, from S. affine than is S. simplex in its floating 

 forms. Mr. Druce's proposed adjustment of these names affords 

 the best possible confirmation of the justness of the opinion 

 expressed above, that " something more is required than the 

 hunting-up of the oldest name ever applied." I have not gone to 

 this length merely for the sake of pointing out that a mistake has 

 been made about the name of a Sparganium; far wider issues are 

 involved, affecting largely the nomenclature of our plants, through 

 the, as I think, unsound principles on which that nomenclature has 

 been, and is being, manipulated. 



"ENDOSPEBM." 

 By G. S. Boulgee, F.L.S. 



No one can deny the value, both from the point of view of the 

 teacher and from that of the student wishing for clear general 

 principles to guide him in original work, of a uniform system of 

 descriptive terminology for the whole Vegetable Kingdom based 

 upon ascertained homologies. This alone is one great reason for 

 botanists to welcome the appearance of Prof. Goebel's * Outlines of 

 Classification and Special Morphology' in an English dress. As 

 hinted in the author's preface to the work, there are two classes of 

 sins against such a desirable uniformity : first, the use of several 

 terms for structures, in various groups, now known to be homo- 

 logous, as in the cited example of ''placenta," " receptacle, 1 ' and 

 4 'columella"; and secondly, the use of one term for structures, in 

 different groups, now known not to be homologous. This second 

 class of misleading terms, of which the cases cited are "frons" and 

 "pro-embryo," seems to be bv far the more dangeron ; and it is to 

 be regretted that Prof. Goebel and his translators seem to have 

 perpetuated one particularly striking case of it in what appears to 

 the present writer to be a wholly unnecessary manner. This case 

 is that of the term " endosperm" in Gymnosperms and Angiosperms. 

 In the " Explanation of Terms," to the maintenance of which the 



