434 A. Gray— Botanical Nomenclature. 
be outlawed by people who accept centimetre, decimetre, beau- 
rocracy, terminology, and the like, nor by botanists who raise no 
objection to ranunculoides, scirpoides, linnceoides, bauhiniordes, 
et 
Cs. 
Names of identical meaning but of different orthography, as 
our author insists, may well enough co-exist. In a vast genus 
it might be neither inconvenient nor harmful to maintain species 
named respectively fluviorum, fluvialis, and fluviatilis, at least 
if they belonged to different parts of the world. 
'e pass to some brief annotations upon the second part of 
the publication before us, which deals with questions not taken 
up by the Congress of 1867. : 
The first topic is that of the nomenclature of organs, which 
was treated with some fulness in the Phytographie. The re- 
mark is here repeated that the greater part of the so-called 
names of organs are only terms, that is, names indicative of the 
condition of organs or parts of the plant. For some of these 
substantive names are necessary or highly convenient, yet 
WwW 
phytotomists will at present heed the counsels of the phytogra- 
phers in this matter. Yet the latter may insist that estab- 
lished names used in descriptive botany shall not be displac 
on the pretence of getting more appropriate ones. For I 
stance, the long-recognized name testa for the outer seed-coat 18 
to be discarded because, forsooth, this covering is not always 
or even not generally a shell, or of the texture of earthen ware. 
As well ask the French to discard the word ¢ée (or testeh 
because the human head, or the skull which gave the name, 
does not really resemble a brick or an earthen pot. 
The second is upon the nomenclature of fossils. And the rale 
is that they are named according to laws which apply oe 
ing plants. The Bologna congress of paleontologists on 
that, to secure priority for specific names of fossils, they shou 
be not only described but figured. DeCandolle, after consulta- 
long as a large part of the names of fossil plants are merely 
tentative and provisional, we should be content with a gener 
approximation to the received rules in botany. Ae 
The nomenclature of groups inferior to species (varie 
sub-varieties, variations and sub-variations) is considered ; bu 
no new rules are proposed ; nor is the question of sub-species 
aiscussed. pe a 
_ Although it is not exactly a matter of nomenclature, we 
