12 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



any length here, but I venture to counsel the general adoption 

 by gardeners and foresters of the generic names as given in 

 Bentham and Hooker's Genera Plantarum," and, in the main, 

 of the specific names as found in Veitch's ''Manual," the more 

 recent " Handbuch der Nadelholzkunde " of Beissner, or the 

 catalogue published by the same author under the title of 

 " Handbuch der Coniferen-Benennung." The want of an 

 acquaintance with the German language forms no obstacle to 

 the employment of this list, in which also are included the 

 principal synonyms. As to the Abies-Picea question, concern- 

 ing which so much has been written, I shall not attempt to 

 add anything beyond the recommendation to our gardeners to 

 adopt, for uniformity sake, the now all but universal plan of 

 calling the Spruces " Picea " and the Silver Firs " Abies." This 

 is the plan adopted by Bentham and Hooker and all modern 

 writers on Conifers. 



In dealing with specific names we are, I consider, bound 

 by the spirit, if not always by the letter, of the " Lois de 

 la Nomenclature Botanique " formulated by M. A. de Candolle, 

 modified and adopted at the Paris Botanical Congress in 

 1867. According to the general spirit of this code we adopt 

 as the proper name that which we believe to be correct both 

 as to its generic and as to its specific portion. The two por- 

 tions form one name. Either by itself is incomplete. Thus 

 botanically we do not now speak of Abies Douglasii because 

 Carriere's proposal to form a separate genus Fseudotsuga has 

 been generally recognised as correct and is adopted in standard 

 books. The plant, then, is now, for those who adopt the French 

 botanist's ruling, Fseudotsuga Douglasii of Carriere. Any other 

 names it may have had are relegated to the hst of synonyms. 

 But this practice does not commend itself to some of our Trans- 

 atlantic friends, who consider that priority and precedence should 

 be given, not necessarily to the generic half of the name, but to 

 the specific half only. It so happens, for instance, that Fseudo- 

 tsuga Douglasii was first made known as Finus taxifolia of 

 Lambert. Few botanists nowadays would include it under 

 Finus, so that the generic half of the name had to be changed. 

 In changing it Carriere omitted to associate with his new 

 generic wdjmQ Fseudotsuga the old half-name taxifolia, but adopted 

 in its stead the name Douglasii, Carriere was perfectly justified in 



