280 
name rather than another." And in point of fact Linneus and the 
early systematists attached little importance to priority. The rigid: 
application of the principle involves the assumption that all persons who 
d or attempt to describe plants are e qually co mpetent to the 
task, -But this is so far from being the case that it is sometimes all bat 
impossible even to nie what could possibly have been meant.* = 
In 1872 Sir Joseph Hooker} wrote: “The n number ber of species: dez 
seri y authors who. cannot determine. their -incre 
‘annually, and I regard the naturalist who puts a deseribed piant into its its 
proper. position in regard to its allies as rendering a grea rvice 
science than its describer when he either puts it into a ser outs or 
throws it into any of those chaotic heaps, miscalled genera, with which’ 
systematic works still abound.” This has always seemed to me not 
u ; 
Wh 
want to do is to push on the.task of getting them named ven Peces 
in an intelligible manner, and their affinities determined as correctly as 
ssible. e shall then have material for dealing with the larger 
problems which the COE of our globe will pisent, when treated 
as a whole. waste | rio 
ike boys who, ME: sent on an ed end their time. ais playing by 
the roadside. By such men eyen Linnæus is not to be allowed to decide 
his own names. To one of the most splendid ornaments of our 
he gave the name of Magnolia grandiflora : this is now to be knownvas 
Magnolia fetida. The reformer himself is constrained to admit, ‘The 
change is a most unfortunate one. in every way.”{ It is difficult to see 
what is gained by making it, except to’ render systematic botany 
ridiculous. The genus Aspidi um, known to every fern-cultivator, was 
founded by Swartz. It now contains some 400 species, of which the vast 
majority were of course unknown to him at the time; yet the names: of 
all these are to be changed becanse Adanson founded a — Dryopter is, 
which seems to be the same thing as Aspidiwn. What, it may be 
On the other hand, we lumber our books with a mass of synonyms, and 
perplex everyone who takes an interest in ferns. It appo ars that 
 name.of the well-known Anton genus Banksia 
to Pimelea : the species are therefore to be renamed, kd [Ya gn is'to 
be rechristened Sirmuellera, after Sir Fe rdinand. von Mueller; a pro- 
posal which, I need hardly say, did not emanate from an Englishman. 
I wili not multiply instances, But the worst of it is that those who 
have carefully. studied the subject know that, from various causes which 
I cannot afford the time to discuss; when once it is attempted to disturb 
ecepted nomenclature it is almost impossible to reach finality. in the 
Darwin, who Aros seems to me, almost — to take the € view in 
matters "eling to natural history, i is (Life, vol. i.p. 8364) dead against 
e of DIREN ‘sppending for pene ity the name of the first po to 
RS eem He is equally against the priority craze:—* I cannot yet bring myself to 
* me very well-known names” (ibid. p. 369)... 
(X Garden and Forest, ii. 615. 
