—94— 



ever, what is the use of a botanical congress at all if 

 every member who does not like its rulings comes home 

 more firmly resolved than ever to use his own private 

 brand of nomenclature? We suspect that much of the 

 opposition to the Vienna rules comes from those who have 

 all to gain and nothing to lose by further experiments 

 at rule-making. The Sassafras Sassafras Sassafras and 

 Labldb Lablab Lablab crowd do not look with compla- 

 cency upon any proposition to trim their absurd nomen- 

 clature. In the main, the Vienna rules should prove satis- 

 factory. The greatest foolishness was the adoption of 

 the rule that a varietal name does not hold when the 

 plant to which it is applied is raised to specific rank. 

 This means, simply, that if you think a named variety 

 is more properly a species you can give it any new name 

 you choose and have your own name placed after it 

 if you will mention the fact in dog-latin in a botanical 

 publication. This is offering a bonus for name changing 

 and nothing more. Regarding the difference to Ibe paid 

 to forgotten botanizers, the Congress took the right stand 

 in refusing to sacrifice about four hundred well-known 

 genera for " prior " names. It is astonishing to note how 

 botanists who have little respect for other botanists living, 

 to judge from their writings, are ready to accord this 

 respect to dead ones. And the longer they have been 

 dead, the greater the respect. They are so concerned for 

 fear the names of some plant-collector of the olden time 

 will be overlooked that they quite fail to see the trouble 

 their whimsical rules are causing us who are still alive 

 and obliged to use the names daily. We shall ever 

 maintain that if any old name did not get into current 

 use it is not the fault of the present generation, — though 

 paradoxical as it may seem, if it does not now get into 

 common use it will not be the fault of this same genera- 

 tion — and having got used to a later name it does not 

 benefit the science any to make a change. The whole 

 world knows Cystopteris fragilis and cannot be fooled 

 into believing that Filix is either necessary, advisable or 



