56 LAWS OF NOMENCLATURE. 



important works of systematic botany of thiB century^ the 

 'Prodromus'' of De Candolle and the 'Genera' of Bndlicher, 

 is at the same time the most simple, the shortest,! and the 

 clearest. Every other system, however equitable it may 

 seem to be as regards the first author of each group of 

 vegetable forms, will always have the great inconvenience of 

 throwing a fresh element of doubt and confusion into the 

 already too intricate labyrinth of synonymy. 



" There is, moreover, according to our way of thinking, 

 either error or exaggeration in the idea that this kind of sig- 

 nature habitually placed after the name of any group that 

 has been established, restricted, extended, subdivided, or 

 transposed, is solely a homage paid to the merit and to the 

 glory of its author. The author's name thus placed is not 

 only the acknowledgment of a right exercised by that au- 

 thor, it is also the recognition on his part of a responsibility 

 that he is to undergo. The improvement of the natural 

 gystem is (as Linnaeus himself has said) the supreme aim of 

 systematic botany. This being so, every change in taxo- 

 nomy (creation, restriction, extension, subdivision, transposi- 

 tion of Orders, genera, species, or varieties) is true or false, 

 good or bad. If it be good, it perfects the method in some 

 way or other, and it is but just that the author should have 

 the merit of it. If it be bad, the method is more or less 

 impaired, and its author must suffer for it. In both cases 

 the author's name, regularly placed, indicates, for each in- 

 novation, the share of merit and the share of responsibility 

 belonging to each ; nothing more, nothing less." 



Finally, we may cite M. Boissier, who, in the preface re- 

 cently published of the first volume of his ' Flora Orien- 

 talis,'^ supports the new system. " Two motives," he says, 

 " have led me to this mode of nomenclature, already adopted 

 by several authors, — one of justice, the other of utility. There 

 are, in effect, two kinds of characters in a plant ; some, that 

 are individual, constitute, as it were, the essence of the 

 species, and allow of its being distinguished from neigh- 

 bouring species ; they are as constant as the species itself, 

 ' One vol. 8vo, Geneva, 1867. 



