tit, ORCHID REVIEW. 
Vote Amel JANUARY, to12. [No. 229. 
OUR NOTE BOOK. 
“WHAT's in a name? A Cypripedium under any other name does not 
appeal to me. I have lots of them in my collection, but no Paphio- 
pedilums.” Thus writes a correspondent, whose name we are not at 
liberty to mention, and it is only one of a series of protests that have 
reached us against the adoption of the late Prof. Pfitzer’s name of 
Paphiopedilum for the Old World Tropical Cypripediums. So numerous. 
and persistent have these protests been that we think the time has come 
for putting a summary of the whole case on record. 
Objections to the use of the name Paphiopedilum have been many and 
various, and we cannot say that all are the result of mere prejudice against 
a change of name which the progress of knowledge may show to be 
necessary. Cypripedium, it is urged, is much too firmly established to be 
set aside, and nothing less than this is involved by the change, for even the 
hardy species, to which the name properly belongs, are in future to be 
called Cypripedilum, because of some grammatical error in the original 
construction of the name, a change which moreover completely alters the 
pronunciation, though adding but a single letter. After more than a 
century of uninterrupted use it is too late to make such an alteration, even 
if grammatically correct. It is not permitted by the law of priority. 
Again, if it be admitted that the Old World Tropical species form a 
distinct genus, there is an earlier name than Paphiopedilum, which latter 
should never have been given, and which under the law of priority cannot 
legitimately be upheld. A third point, that horticulturists have steadily 
refused to recognise the change, whether owing to prejudice or not, is held 
to be not only justified by the two considerations just mentioned, but also. 
conclusive. 
It might further have been advanced that Pfitzer originally based his 
genus upon the Selenipedia acaulia coriifolia of Reichenbach (expressly 
citing Xen. Orch., i. p. 3, which only contains eight American species), 
hough in briefly indicating its characters he spoke of the ovary as. 
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