INTRODUCTION. Alrg 
Linnaeus’ Genera Plantarum unless adopted by him have been 
regarded as devoid of prior right to consideration. In the 
Linnaean works, page-numbers and page-positions have been 
held to establish priority and older generic names have always 
been maintained over newer. When genera have been com- 
bined the older names are always retained for the new combi- 
nations, except in such cases as Stachys—Betonica or Sorbus- 
Pirus where the newer name received the greater number of 
species in 1753. This is the rule proposed by Kuntze and it is 
reasonable. 
In general the nomenclature adopted is believed to be thor- 
oughly abreast of the times. To compile this has been a much 
more difficult task than it would have been to accept unques- 
tioningly the names as presented in such a book as the Watson 
and Coulter revision of Gray’s Manual (26). It is believed, 
however, that in a list like this the eye should be cast forw:rd 
instead of backward, that the future should receive -onsid:sra- 
ation as well as the past. To the complaint, which has much 
of reason in it, that all changes in nomenclature shoutd be left 
to monographers and should be carefully avoided by the com- 
pilers of local floras, only one thing can be said. That is this: 
there is no honesty in hiding behind some other’s work simply 
because one’s own work is of humble nature. In local floras as 
well as in monographs the public has a right to demand the 
result of the best and truest convictions of its servants. It is 
dishonest to put forward anything which one does not believe 
to be correct, on the plea that some one else will correct it. It 
is discreditable to conform to a custom that one does not sanc- 
tion, that one believes is in rightful course of final extinction. 
With this and other exigencies held in view. the writer has 
not hesitated to uphold as strict an interpretation of the law of 
priority as may be possible. It has been a matter of concern, 
not so much to gratify a conservative instinct in those who 
may have occasion to use this list, as to keep squarely in the 
current of progress towards the better botanical nomenclature 
of the twentieth century. Reforms are not brought about by 
inanition or conformity. They must be contended for even at 
the risk of temporary disturbance of the established order. 
The details of working which must demand attention on the 
part of the ‘‘nomenclaturist " when he considers so wide a field 
as the names of living or fossil organisms may offer him, have 
been indicated in many papers and volumes. Nomenclators, 
(26). Watson and Coulter: Gray's Man., 6 ed. (1890), 
—2 
