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AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY 
[Vol. 8 
should eliminate much of the present confusion; even the provision for 
validating a name by a fully authorized tribunal, when a change is desirable, 
is being considered. 
In other ways the usages regarding personal names and plant names show 
a similarity in evolution. In the earlier days personal names usually denoted 
some quality or distinction in the individual, fanciful or real; as Clovis, 
glorious warrior; Mathilda, mighty amazon; Adolf, the noble wolf; Cicero, 
the vetch-grower. When surnames came into use they were at first selected 
in much the same way, as Rich, Noble, Black, Brown, Archer, Goldsmith. 
But after a time the multiplicity of names, and the necessity of continuing 
their use when no longer applicable, led to the present usage of disregarding 
the qualifying significance in either surnames or given names, and to select 
them for euphony, or family association, or fanciful reasons. The course 
with botanical names has been much the same, but the evolution has not 
gone as far, doubtless because of the shorter period of time involved. For 
a while it was thought necessary to give descriptive or informative names to 
plants, and when they proved inappropriate to change them. But the 
practice has largely fallen into disuse in late years. Plantago major is a 
much smaller plant than the similar and more common plantain that grows 
with it everywhere in this country east of the Rocky Mountains, yet the 
name has not been changed. Some taxonomists, however, who deal with 
the lower orders of plants, especially the fungi, are still in the dark ages 
with their nomenclatural practice. A rust called Puccinia Distichlidis 
has been renamed, because it was found that the grass on which it occurs 
is not Distichlis, but only looks like Distichlis. In another group of fungi a 
prominent writer stated not long ago that 
We have heretofore used Cyathus Poeppigii as the name for this species, but in the 
future we shall adopt the name originally applied to it by Poeppig. We do not do this on 
any ground of priority, but because Cyathus Poeppigii is a heathenish kind of name that 
ought to be suppressed. 
Within the last month or so a transatlantic colleague has written re- 
garding a species of Helminthosporium : 
May I point out the course we have adopted with regard to the spelling of the specific 
name of the barley stripe fungus? We now invariably use graminum, the genitive plural of 
the substantive, believing this to be more correct than the adjectival form gramineum. 
One might cite many instances to show that, although the latest rules 
of nomenclature do not sanction changes like these, we are yet slow in 
arriving at the stage at which the name of a plant, like that of a person, is 
generally considered as an appellation wholly for identification, and what- 
ever of descriptive or adjunct information it may convey must be considered 
entirely incidental or historical. 
Curiously, we speak of the name of a plant or person as if it were a 
simple designation, like a number. Yet it is a compound of two very 
