311 



A TRIO OF BRITISH AND ALIEN PLANT=LISTS. 



F. ARNOLD LEES, M.R.C.S., Etc. 



The last decade's advance in Botany is on a par with that of 

 Education and other things. Emulating the Teuton and the 

 Gaul in the jotting of details, as in the enunciation of broad 

 principles, British field botanists have been re-searching as 

 well as insearching, and one expression of the result is the 

 appearance of the three catalogues that furnish the ' text ' 

 for what I wish to say — caring Httle whether I am agreed with 

 or not, at the finish, by who have interest enough to look into 

 my references' for themselves, if only my object of stimulating 

 inquiry be attained. My ideas are those of one somewhat out 

 •of-touch with modern specialism along some hues. Adverse 

 circumstances have denied me the opportunity a certain leisure 

 should bring, but the being out of collar gives a degree of fresh- 

 ness to the starting anew ; and ' lookers on,' who have a suffi- 

 cient famiharity with the ' game,' proverbially see most 

 because unshackled by the absorption entailed in manipulatory 

 formulas and personal labour. 



The swiftly-successive publication, early in the current 

 year, of three more or less official lists of British Spermophytes, 

 Pteridophytes and Charads, calls for some mention and exami- 

 nation, inasmuch as it connotes the tide-mark of our botanic 

 experts' views on plant nomenclature and birth-grade ; although 

 finality in such matters can hardly be said to have been reached. 

 They severally mark the termenologic outcome of the Botanical 

 Congress at Vienna in 1905, which ' insisted ' on the adoption 

 •of ' the earliest specific name ' attached by diagnosts, ' no 

 matter under what genus ' such name was first described. 

 In sum, this ' battle ' of ' Flags florent ' has not lowered the 

 Standard of the immortal Linnaeus, inimicous as it may have 

 seemed to his amphiental fame : Bellis perennls is still 

 Bellis perennis, L., albeit one variety or state, discoidea, devoid 

 of its ray or ruffle has modestly come to the birth ! There was 

 certainly a ' clear call ' for 'one such catalogue ; and now that 

 we have three to choose from, and bring our individual know- 

 ledge (as to flower faces) up to, as ever happens in the march 

 •of mentahty, there is a clamant need of a manual or handbook 

 which shall define for us the names, running respectively in 

 the three Usts up to 1700, 2075, and 2990 or thereabout. In 



1908 August I. 



