28o 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
[Vol. 8 
that I have seen Hsted horticulturally as Garden Huckleberry, and that 
evidently belongs to the great genus Solanum or one of its segregates, but 
I have been unable to find it described in any botanical treatise at my com- 
mand. There may be, and doubtless are, other plants in our front yards 
and vegetable gardens whose naming is uncertain for lack of sufficient study, 
and how much more so must be the case of plants in forests, fields, and 
mountains, and in the botanically unexplored regions of our own and other 
countries. What is true of the larger flowering plants is even more appli- 
cable to the far greater numbers of the less conspicuous lower orders of 
plants. 
The introduction of any number of new names, when discriminately 
applied to really new species, is not a source of embarrassment, but an aid 
to better understanding. The trouble arises when two botanists in different 
parts of the world independently give different names to the same plant, 
or when a name is applied to a species supposed to be new but afterward 
^ound to have been named, or when some one ascertains that a name has 
been badly chosen, is inapplicable, or of faulty construction, or when the 
demands of classification seem to require the transfer of a name from one 
genus to another. In such or similar cases, which are exceedingly numerous, 
the choice of rival names is still largely a matter of personal preference, 
although from the days of De Candolle attempts have been made to formu- 
late guiding rules, which have been of more or less service, but never gener- 
ally accepted. It is the opinion of Mr. C. G. Lloyd of Cincinnati, whose 
trenchant pen has scored many present-day mycological nomenclaturists 
for their pedantic ways, that the value of a name should be derived from 
"historical truth and general use." He believes that ''if mycological 
writers in general would rely on these principles alone in the selection of 
names, it would only be a short time until we should be in practical accord." 
The principles seem simple, and if they would serve to secure acceptable 
unity for mycological names, they would doubtless serve as well for all 
other plant names. Certainly the great desideratum for names is their 
general acceptance, so that the same name always applies to the same plant 
in the writings of all authors. More than a century ago, when the contro- 
versy was raging in this country over the comparative merits of Jussieu's 
natural system and the artificial system of Linnaeus, Thomas Jefferson, 
"one of the six greatest men in the history of the public life of the United 
States," as a recent historian has stated, a broad-minded statesman and a 
man of high scientific attainments, contended that in this connection no 
matter was " so important a consideration as that of uniting all nations under 
one language in natural history." The committee on nomenclature ap- 
pointed by this society is endeavoring to aid in such a movement. As no 
rules to govern the names of plants can be made mandatory, their general 
acceptance must necessarily depend upon their appeal to precision and 
serviceableness, as well as upon the provision they make for authentication 
in doubtful cases. 
