﻿those who should be eligible to take part and to vote in such congress. 

 Congresses are excellent things in their way, but Dr. Kuntze regards 

 them too much in the light of, eay, an international postal con- 

 vention, forgetting that such a convention has the powers of its 

 represented governments at its back to enforce compliance. What 

 powers has a voluntary congress ? What penal enactments can it 

 formulate and enforce ? Art. 2 of the Paris Code sets this out 

 very clearly ; it says : — 



" The rules of nomenclature should neither be arbitrary nor 

 imposed by authority. They must be founded on considerations 

 clear and forcible enough for every one to comprehend and be dis- 

 posed to adopt." 



In other words, if any botanist adopts a method which does not 

 command the support of the botanical world, he must take the 

 consequences of his perverseness. The same Congress only " re- 

 commends' its code as a suggested model, and I do not find that 

 it was ever contemplated to make it retrospective, far less sub- 

 It is most regrettable that Dr. Kuntze should have thought fit 

 to use language towards Prof. Ascherson, M. Alphonse DeCandolle, 

 and Prof. Saccardo, of the most reprehensible character, which 

 must everywhere rouse feelings of indignation. It is perfectly easy 

 to dissent from an opponent's expressions without imputing fraud ; 

 Dr. Kuntze is far too apt to assign unworthy motives, as will be 

 shown later. Another unamiable feature here shown is the author's 

 desire to minimise his indebtedness to Kew and the MS., Index. On 

 his arrival in this country, Dr. Kuntze displayed no deep acquaint- 

 ance with the older botanical literature; indeed, it is notorious 

 that his views only assumed their present form during his stay in 

 England. The note on page 191 is misleading ; from it the reader 

 would infer that all the bibliographical help obtained was derived 

 from the British Museum at Bloomsbury, which is wide of the truth ; 

 Dr. Kuntze could have utilised that admirable library but to a small 



It is not surprising that an author so mentally constituted 

 should himself sometimes err. Thus, in his eagerness to convict 

 me of one mistake, he makes two of his own. The statement that 

 Linnaeus was "contemptuous" enough to change Siegesbeck's 

 Obolaria into his Linnaa is utterly wrong ; the genus Linncea was 

 founded by Gronovius in the first edition of the Genera , which came 

 out early in 1737, whilst in October of the same year Linnaeus was 

 writing to Haller about the rumour that Siegesbeck's Hortus 

 Petropolitanm was published, but was sorry to say that he had not 

 yet seen it ; Amman sent the book itself to Linnaeus in January, 

 1738. The latest charge against Linnseus is therefore clumsy, as 

 well as false. I purposely wrote "apparently contemptuous," 

 owing to the possible doubt as to Siegesbeck's intentions at the 

 time ; at a later date there could be none. 



Another, but comparatively trifling, correction is needed as to 

 the part taken by me with regard to the Berlin proposals ; if the 

 matter was worth mention at all, it should have been correctly 



