14i 



SCIENCE. 



[X. S. Vol. XXI. X'o. 526. 



should be retained, but only in ease there 

 can be no doiibt as to its interpretation. 

 (5) If a conception has already received 

 a name and there is no obvious reason to 

 discard that name, an axithor has no right 

 to propose a new term. (6) A law of pri- 

 ority is practicable, we think, only so far 

 as the principles laid down in the previous 

 pages of this article will admit. (7) A 

 name, the conception of which has ma- 

 terially changed in the course of time, 

 naturally has no standing. (8) A tech- 

 nical term should be associated in our mind 

 with the idea it represents. (9) A tech- 

 nical term should be clearly defined so as 

 to leave no doubt as to its significance. 

 Authors should, therefore, desist from pro- 

 posing new terms in mere catalogues. (10) 

 A new term should be published in some 

 work accessible to scientific workers. (11) 

 Vernacular names should not be excluded 

 from phytogeographic nomenclature, but 

 they must in every case be definite and 

 give rise to no ambiguity. (12) An inter- 

 national committee of phytogeographers 

 should be appointed by the Vienna con- 

 gress, to continue the work on a proposed 

 code of rules. (13) This committee shoiild 

 consider what kinds of technical terms arie 

 needed ; how they should be classified, i., 

 with regard to distribution, abundance, 

 elevation, phenological phenomena, etc. 

 (14) The result of the work of the com- 

 mittee already existing, and of the succeed- 

 ing one, should be published at an early 

 date, so as to give the public ample time to 

 discuss the various phases of the q\iestion 

 before the following congress assembles. 

 The Cycadofilices: David White. 



The 'cycadofilices' (Pteridospermea?) 

 comprise a group of Paleozoic fossil plant 

 genera which, as the name implies, are in- 

 termediate between ferns and gymno- 

 sperms. The structure of the stems, roots 

 and petioles shows a mingling of filical 

 with cycadean characters; the fronds are 



typically filicoid, as also would seem to be 

 the little-known microsporangia : but the 

 seeds, definitely recognized in ljut three 

 genera, appear to agree in their main fea- 

 tures with the primitive (fossil) gymno- 

 sperms. The paper describes the more im- 

 portant or striking characters as yet dis- 

 covered in these remarkable tj'pes. which, 

 in general, antedated the cycads. 

 Suggestions from the Study of Dairy 



Fungi: Charles Thom. 



The demands of certain economic prob- 

 lems emphasize the necessity of finding 

 more certain and more uniform means 

 of describing and determining common 

 saprophytic fungi. The intimate connec- 

 tion between most of these problems and 

 bacteriological questions suggests the desira- 

 bility of seeking such methods of descrip- 

 tion in their physiological and morpholog- 

 ical relations to well-known culture-meth- 

 ods and media. A dairy problem would 

 indicate the methods of the dairy bacteri- 

 ologist as to some extent necessary to make 

 the work of practical value. Following 

 these suggestions a series of dairy fungi 

 have been cultivated upon such media 

 through many generations. Certain spe- 

 cies of Penicillium have been grown in hun- 

 dreds of cultures to ascertain the compara- 

 tive value of the observations made upon 

 several substrata. In spite of wide varia- 

 tions on different substrata a remarkably 

 constant series of characters have been 

 secured which recur regularly upon the 

 media used. These results suggested the 

 utility of a diagrammatic summary upon 

 the general plan used by the bacteriologists 

 which should be useful for contrasting the 

 characters of different species. The char- 

 acters found of value in the genus Pcnicil- 

 livin are reaction to litmus-media, lique- 

 faction of gelatine, variations in color of 

 colony, structures appearing at the margin 

 of the rapidly growing colony, general sur- 

 face effect of the colony, the relations ( f 



