IX 



problems ; in all such, cases encountered in the preparation of this Catalogue 

 a conservative course has been adopted, and no name has been taken up when 

 there was any reasonable doubt as to what plant it was meant to designate. 



Another perplexing question relates to those specific names which are 

 more or less equivalent to the accompanying generic names without being 

 identical. EcMnocystis lobata, T, & G. , was originally Sicyos ecMnatus, Muhl. 

 Is EcMnocystis ecMnata admissible? Larix Americana, Michx., was originally 

 Pinus laricina, Du Koi. Can Larix la/ricina be accepted ? In this Catalogue 

 both these questions are decided affirmatively, and those who think otherwise 

 are referred to Specularia Speculum, DC, as a weighty precedent. 



Alteration of specific names h^^s often been condoned upon the plausible 

 pretext of making them more appropriate, and many will be disinclined to 

 accept the strict law of priority because it brings in now and then a name 

 which, viewed as descriptive, not only lacks fitness but is erroneous and mis- 

 leading. The polynomial names of the pre-Linnsean systematic botanists 

 necessarily described, and any inaccuracy was a grave defect. It is a special 

 merit of the binomial system that descriptive terms are not essential. The 

 personal names so often employed signify nothing as to the nature of the 

 plants, and yet serve perfectly well to designate species. It is also true that 

 more than one positively deceptive name is in general use. Berheris Cana- 

 densis, L., does not grow in Canada; Dioscorea villosa, L., is never villous; 

 Salvia Hispanica, L., is "a purely Mexican species." Let these reconcile the 

 objector to Asclepias Syriaca, L., Conioselinum Ghinense, (L.), Oentiana quin- 

 quefolia, L., and some other names which are in fact erroneous, but in practice 

 perfectly satisfactory. It is to be remembered that the same law of priority 

 which forces these names upon us also gives us not a few that are most 

 happily descriptive. 



It may be well before concluding to explain that the author of the earliest 

 specific or varietal name receives due credit in this Catalogue by citation in 

 parenthesis, in all cases where his plant stands in a genus or rank other than 

 that to which he referred it, and where consequently the name as a whole 

 must be credited to some later authority. Ilex glabra. Gray, as commonly 

 cited, wholly ignores Linngeus' relation to the plant; Ilex glabra, (L,), Gray, 

 gives due and equal credit to the authors of the original specific name and the 

 present accepted binomial. 



In the list of ballast plants no attempt has been to made to apply the law 

 of priority or to indicate the authors of transferred specific names, partly for 

 want of time and partly because this work should be done by botanists more 

 especially concerned with the Floras of the countries to which the plants 

 naturally belong. 



The present writers are convinced that in the not distant future the law 

 they have taken as their guide will be generally accepted as the only one that 

 promises a reasonable fixity of botanical names. The practice has, indeed, 

 long been generally adopted by zoologists, as well as by lichenologists and 

 mycologists, and its application to flowering plants will serve to bring all 

 biological nomenclature into practical harmony. 



