New York, March Ilth, 1896. 



Dr. George a. Kennedy, 



r,ear Sir, 



your letter of the TOth is 

 received. It pleases me to learn that you enjoyed the Buxbaumia ar- 

 ticle, I di d too, in hunting it all up in the old pamphlets, and 

 books. You ask why I call Diphyseium, Webera sessilis. I am simply 

 following the laws of the r>aris congress, the American ornitholo- 

 gists Union, and the ones which Sargent is following in the Sylva. 

 j do not like the name any more than you do, and should infinitely 

 prefer to call it Diphyscium, as I have always known it, but, if my 

 doing so, gives someone seise the same privilege, and we have togo 

 back to the old days, when everyone could do as he or she pleased, 

 and allow such men as "-'indbcrgto e'ange the names of mosses as of ta 

 and as carelessly ts they please, then I say give us a fixed law, 

 and put a stop to all this muddle. It is not as if we had begun it, 

 or could help, it has been going on from time immemorial, as you 

 would see if you had had to mount up as many mosses under as many 

 different synonymns as I have since I began at them 15 years ago. 

 And if you have read Roscoo rounds review, of Redfield and Rands, 

 Mt. Desert Flora in the American yaturlaist for December, 1894, you 

 will see how some of the others feel about it. yes, you can get 

 that article j»y M. Le Jolis, as a separate, if yon. want it. I have 

 a copy which I could lend you. I am pleased to learn that you are 

 devoting yourself to New England Mosses. m hat. is the kind of work 

 that is wanted, and since Prof, waton has gone, there was no one to 

 whom that duty seemed especially to belong. 



