353 
PiVlVtl AND CEMETE-IVir 
I\.eforms in Botanical Nomenclature 
The International Botanical Congress, recently held 
at Menna, occupied itself with a consideration of the 
laws of nomenclature adopted at the Paris Congress of 
1867. For comparison, the reporter of the Congress, 
Dr. John Briquet, had tabulated in parallel columns, 
side by side with these laws, practically all of the propo- 
sitions for their modification that have been made since 
that time. His preliminary tabulation, printed in this 
way, was submitted to an international commission, 
appointed at the last Congress, five years since, and 
the recommendations of the commission, as indicated 
to him, were then tabulated side by side with the other 
matter, and in still another column. Briquet noted his 
own commentary on the matter, section by section. 
\\’ith the document as thus finally printed, forming a 
quarto of 160 pages, the Congress, including about 
seventy-five botanists, occupied themselves in the after- 
noon during the whole week of the Congress, taking 
the rules up section by section. 
The principal of Latin binomial nomenclature for 
species was reaffirmed, and the general principle of 
priority for the name to be used accepted, but wdth 
very important restrictions. The American botanists, 
for the most part (though there are a few marked 
exceptions), have favored the adoption of rules for 
botanical nomenclature closely parallel with those 
adopted by the zoologists, making priority the abso- 
lute criterion. Their contention that the publication 
of Linn3eus’s Species Plantarum in 1753 be made the 
starting point received official confirmation. The con- 
tention of the American botanists that the first speci- 
fic generic name used for a plant, under whatever genus, 
must be retained when it is transferred to another 
genus was sustained, except that the generic name 
is not to be repeated as a specific name: for instance, 
Catalpa Catalpa and Sassafras Sassafras are ruled out, 
the specific names to be used in such cases being the first 
specific name used after the employment of wdiat is now 
a generic name as the specific name. A rule was passed 
in favor of the use of names which have once been syn- 
onyms and therefore Ijarred while synonyms, but have 
ceased to be synonyms in the subsequent generic manip- 
ulation of a given group. Under the rules of the 
Congress, plant descriptions, to be entitled to consider- 
ation in priority questions, must, after the first of 1908, 
be in Latin except in works now in course of publi- 
cation. 
A very important deviation from the current prac- 
tice of most American botanists was made in exempt- 
ing from the application of the rules of generic priority 
a list of some 400 genera which have been recognized 
under names other than those first given them for so 
long a time as to be in general use. Of these, some 
of the most interesting for horticulturists are : Zamia, 
Podocarpus, Sequoia, Chamaedorea, Desmoncus, Philo- 
dendron, Aychmea, Pitcairnia, Vriesia, Eichhornia, 
Narthecium, Haw'orthia, Agapanthus, Brodiaea, Cor- 
dyline, Sansevieria, Belamcanda, Heliconia, Spiranthes, 
Dendrobium, Bulbophyllum, Zelkova, Madura, Pilea, 
Protea, Leucadendron, Fagopyrum, Cocculus, Calycan- 
thus, Myristica, Dicentra, Corydalis, Malcolmia, Peta- 
lostemon. Wistaria, Oxytropis, Adesmia, Desmodium, 
Centrosema, Amphicarpaea, Mucuna, Ailanthus, Co- 
diaeum, Ternstroemia, Gordonia, Mamillaria, Rhip- 
salis, Shepherdia, Gaylussacia, Bumelia, Calystegia, j 
Mertensia, Pycnanthemum, Nicandra, Ecballium, Ech- j' 
inocystis, Sechium, Wahlenbergia, Vernonia, Alikania, | 
Liatris, Brickellia, Zinnia, Actinomeris, Gazania, c 
Cnicus, and Taraxacum, — all of which, by the strict | 
application of the rules of priority, would be changed, j 
as indeed many of them have been of recent years in | 
the writings of many American botanists. j 
The things of most interest to those concerned with 
the cultivation of decorative plants consist in a re- 
iteration of the rule of 1867 that garden forms and 
sports are to be given vernacular names as different 
as possible from the Latin names of species or varie- 
