32 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF NEW JERSEY. 
or whatever its rank as species or variety. Many of our plants have 
originally been described in genera other than those now accepted, 
and many were at first supposed to be species which are now regarded 
as varieties, or the reverse of this. The method adopted of citing 
the original author of the specific or varietal name—the only perma- 
nent portion of the binomial—in a parenthesis, tells us who first 
named the plant, while the added name behind the parenthesis, shows 
who first brought the names together in their present combination. 
This method has, with slight modifications, been generally adopted 
by zodlogists, and by students of fungi, alge, lichens and mosses, 
and its general use in botany tends to bring all biological nomen- 
clature into harmony. A few examples will suffice to indicate 
the method. Our mistletoe was first described by Pursh, who called 
it Viscum flavescens, not regarding it generically distinct from the 
mistletoe of Europe, Viscum album of Linneus. Subsequently 
Nuttall detected certain well-marked differences, and founding a new 
genus Phoradendron, called our plant Phoradendron flavescens. We 
therefore write Phoradendron flavescens (Pursh), Nutt. The younger 
Michaux named the black-barked sugar maple Acer nigrum; Torrey 
and Gray, determining that it was but a variety of the ordinary 
sugar or rock maple, described it, in their Flora of North America, 
as Acer saccharinum, L., var. nigrum, which we write, Acer sacchari- 
num, L., var. nigrum (Michx. f.), T. & G. In ordinary parlance we 
do not attempt to recall the authors of the names, but use only the 
Latin designations. It is, however, quite essential for exactness that 
the authors’ names be published. The names used in the last three 
sub-kingdoms are determined in the same way, and the catalogue is, 
therefore, uniform in this respect. 
