THE CONSERVATION OF GENERA 



/^OMPLAINT has been made, bitterly enough at times, of 

 the constant changing of specific names, resulting from 

 a rigid enforcement of the law of priority. In reply, it is con- 

 tended with some plausibility that such changes will cease au- 

 tomatically when the anticjuarian has finally accomplished his 

 task. But there is another source of confusion which has not 

 received adecjuate attention. Apparently it is regarded as quite 

 unavoidable, or perhaps it is not commonly thought of as a dif- 

 ficulty of nomenclature at all. I refer to^ the continual changing 

 of names that results from the subdivision of genera. Who has 

 not experienced the peculiar feeling of mingled exasperation 

 and dismay which follows the discovery that some long- 

 familiar genus whose species are to most of us scarcely distin- 

 guishable as species, has been split over night into half a dozen 

 new genera. In place of the familiar collective group — Jonesia, 

 let us say — we now have Neojonesia, Eii^jonesia, Pseudo- 

 jonesia, Megajonesia, Micro jonesia and Hcterojonesia, or per- 

 haps a set of names that no longer even suggest the former 

 unit. And if we look for the distinctions upon which these 

 subdivisions are based, we commonly find that the differences 

 are very trifling indeed in comparison with the many and de- 

 tailed points of resemblance between these various groups. 



Taxonomists are too prone to regard this whole question 

 of nomenclature as one which is exclusively their own. The 

 intrusion of an outsider into the fray is likely to be hotly re- 

 sented. I remember venturing-, several years ago. to express 

 some of the above views in a letter to a well-known authority 



