THEIR NOMENCLATURE. 459 
would be insufficient explanation, although some local writers 
might excusably be unaware how or why it would be insufficient. 
If they wish to be intelligible, they must tell us further which 
edition they suppose themselves to be following. In cases where 
we do not find this more explicit information, and unfortunately 
in some instances even when we have it given, we may remain 
quite at a loss to know what is really intended by a specific name 
used. Take the name spinulosa in illustration of this uncertainty. 
According to the ‘ British Flora’ of 1850 it may mean itself as a 
segregate species, corresponding with the spinosa of Newman; or 
it may mean dilatata, corresponding with the multiflora of 
Newman ; or it may mean @mula, corresponding with the recurva 
of Newman. According to the same work, edition of 1860, it 
cannot mean either dilatata or emula, but must exclusively mean 
a form of cristata. Or, take the name dilatata, almost equally 
confused and uncertain. According to the first editions of the 
‘ History’ or the ‘ Manual,’ it will include and may mean either 
dilatata or spinulosa, or even @mula more or less confused with 
dumetorum. Thus, when meeting with localities on record for 
“spinulosa” or for ‘ dilatata,” without further and _ special 
explanation, how are we to know whether spinulosa, or dilatata, or 
amula, or dumetorum is truly intended by either name? Lach 
name may mean any one of the four ferns. 
These instances given at some length from the genera Ranun- 
culus, Thalictrum, Viola, Hypericum, Valeriana, and Aspidium, 
are only samples of many such confusions in our descriptive 
Floras. I could have wished to give other illustrations from the 
yet more confused and changeable nomenclature in the genera 
Rubus, Rosa, Hieracium, Mentha, Salix, and Potamogeton ; were 
it not that their unavoidable length and tediousness would too far 
exhaust my own pages and the Reader's patience. Those Readers 
who may have thus far got through the half dozen illustrations, 
and have begun to estimate the difficulties they bring in the way 
of a writer on geographic or topographic botany, will feel no 
surprise that he should be so hostile to needless innovations 
which add to the difficulties by further increasing the confusion. 
