—93— 



will join with us in an anniversary number that will be 

 second to none. 



If any of the readers of this magazine are interested 

 in wild-flowers as well as ferns it will be worth their 

 while to get a copy of the American Botanist. For seven 

 years it has been issued and every number is still of value 

 to the botanist, the gardener and the student of nature. 

 More than half of each issue is made up of notes similar 

 to the Pteridographia of this magazine but dealing with 

 every phase of botany. Nearly three thousand of these 

 notes have been issued, giving an immense amount of 

 information about plants. None of the articles are of a 

 technical nature and both the common and scientific 

 names of all plants mentioned are given. The editor of 

 The Fern Bulletin is also editor of The American 

 Botanist, and will be glad to send samples to all who are 

 interested. 



* 



Notwithstanding the Vienna Botanical Congress and 

 the publication of Christiansen's " Index Filicum," or per- 

 haps in consequence of them, the subject of nomenclature 

 continues to be a bone of contention ; in fact, the laws of 

 nomenclature like laws in general, are capable of so many 

 different interpretations that anything but stability and 

 uniformity has resulted from their application. Judging 

 from the many attempts to form a perfect set of rules 

 that have ended in failure we doubt whether any body 

 of scientists can make a set of rules that all their associates 

 would subscribe to. The botanists, especially, are a bit 

 too fond of considering their own interests first and the 

 good of the science afterward. Although the Congress 

 made a set of rules that ought to have produced approxi- 

 mate stability, the various " schools " are apparently as 

 far apart as ever and the existence of an " American 

 Code " is proof of the assertion. It may be asked, how- 



