greatest ambition is the detection, description, and nomencla- 
ture of a “ new” species ; but only a small proportion of the 
so-called “ new” species, constantly being added to the 
Lichen-Flora of Britain or the world, is destined to stability ; 
very few indeed of the host of names conferred on supposed 
“ new” genera, species, or varieties, are necessary in science 
or useful to the student. The British student of Lichenology 
is bewildered by the number of “ new species” that are being 
daily added even to the British Lichen-Flora, while as yet 
there is no simple and philosophical arrangement of the 
common forms that are already well known. It would be 
wrong to depi'eciate the labours — the enthusiasm and perse- 
verance — of the searchers for and discoverers of “ new spe- 
cies but it is quite permissible to express strongly the 
opinion that I cannot place their labours in the same 
category with those of the Biologists, who, working in great 
measure, nevertheless, with thematerials of thespecies-hunters, 
reduce such discoveries to their proper place in a simple 
systematic arrangement : who study plants in all phases of 
growth, and who are thus led and enabled to enlarge the 
definitions of groups, to diminish names, and to simplify 
classification on natural principles. 
I rejoice to find that the views on botanical classification and 
nomenclature which I have long been led to entertain are sub- 
stantially those which are held and published by some of the 
most eminent Naturalists of the present day — by those, to 
wit, whose experience has been the greatest and most x r aried. 
Professor Agassiz, for instance, in his recent work on Brazil, 
asserts that “ the discovery of a new species .... is now 
almost the lowest kind of scientific w ork ”! Mr. Bentham, the 
present distinguished President of the Linnean Socity, com- 
mends “ subjects of inquiry much more important than 
differences in external form” to “Naturalists residing in 
countries where no new forms are to be discovered .” 1 Dr. 
Muller, the learned Director of the Botanical Garden of 
Melbourne, remarks that, “ through want of extensive field 
studies, untenable limits are assigned to a vast number of 
supposed specific forms and that “ the vain attempt to 
draw r lines of specific demarcation between mere varieties or 
races .... has largely tended to suggest the theory of 
transmutation .” 2 
The subjoined list does not profess to be complete. It is 
intended only as a contribution to the subject to which it 
1 Presidential Address, ‘Journal of Linnean Society,’ “Zoology,” No. 42, 
186S, pp. kx, xcv, xeix. 
5 ‘ Vegetation of the Chatham Islands.’ 
