COMMENTAEY. 41 



nesSj according to the importance of their characters. It may- 

 be added that the word sectio, in the sense of subgenuSj has 

 become famiUar on account of its being adopted in the 

 ' Prodromus.' 



The numerous subdivisions indicated in Article 10 may, 

 in many obscure or contestable cases, prevent making new 

 generic and specific names. You scruple to create a genus ? 

 make a subgenus or a section. You hesitate about making 

 a species ? let it be a subspecies, or a variety. These are 

 general terms, on which all botanists are likely to agree, both 

 those who are inclined to attach importance to slight differ- 

 ences, and those who are not. By this means a multitude of 

 new names, above all of species, that would be contested are 

 avoided. 



11 . This Article will appear too absolute if we consider the 

 variety of significations given to some words, such as sec- 

 tion, class, tribe, in different botanical works ; but it is im- 

 possible not to admit the pre-eminence of certain works 

 as regards the use of words and forms. A botanist may 

 have ideas in nomenclature preferable, in certain points, 

 to those of Linnffius, Jussieu, De CandoUe, Bndlicher, etc. ; 

 but if he has published no general works to which every- 

 body is obliged to have recourse, the forms that he has used 

 will scarcely be resorted to. This can neither be called in- 

 justice nor voluntary exclusion, — it is inevitable. Had Lin- 

 nffius proposed his binomiual method in ephemeral treatises, 

 instead of in his ' Species Plantarum,' it is probable that it 

 would have attracted little attention. The arrangement of 

 the groups which we have given, is very nearly the same as 

 that followed in all the large works that are in botanists' 

 hands. The closer we keep to this unity, the better, how- 

 ever conventional it may be. 



12. We have tried to find a Latin word for the well- 

 known and very precise French word metis. Dictionaries 

 indicate bigener, but the word ' genus ' having in natural 

 history a peculiar acceptation, to apply higener to a hybrid, 

 and a fortiori to a metis, would produce error and confasion. 

 The word mistus exists ; it answers almost literallj- to metis. 



