134 
JOUBHAL OP THE EOYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Annual Report of the Royal Gardens, Kew, contained a catalogue of 
one important Natural Order; and we trust that others may in due 
time be forthcoming. Indeed, so much has been done in the case 
of several of the Orders that but little more is required beyond con¬ 
densation and revision so as to secure uniformity of treatment. 
In the next place, our Society might do more than it does to 
discourage haphazard nomenclature, and to promote a more accurate 
system. In the case of a newly-introduced plant no name should 
be officially recognised till evidence is afforded that proper care has 
been taken to secure correct nomenclature. In those cases where, 
owing to the plant not being in flower, or where from any other 
cause the correct name cannot be given, a provisional name must 
be ’employed, but the certificate—if the plant should be awarded 
one—should be provisional also, and should be replaced by a 
permanent award when the name of the plant is correctly ascer¬ 
tained. This would involve a periodical investigation of the pro¬ 
visional certificates, a matter which would not entail any very 
great labour, but of which the results, if properly carried out, 
would be most advantageous alike to horticulture and to botanical 
science. 
Rut if, as we fear would be the case, this scheme be not 
practicable, the Scientific Committee, or a sub-committee of that 
body, might appropriately be told off to supervise the names of 
plants exhibited as new, or of those whose identification seemed 
doubtful—a duty which, with the assistance to be had at Kew 
would not be a very irksome one. 
With reference to the nomenclature of florists’ flowers, 
garden hybrids, the endless varieties of Crotons and Dracaenas, the 
interminable series of new or so-called new Peas, and other 
fruits and vegetables—the Floral and Fruit Committees might very 
appropriately exercise some control. They might do much 
towards insuring accuracy, regulating uncouth or absurd appella¬ 
tions, deleting useless synonyms, and the like—tasks all the more 
easily carried out with the assistance of the experimental ground 
at Chiswick. 
We do not of course suppose that the Society could enforce any 
code, but its example would be very powerful, and the refusal to 
give permanent certificates till the nomenclature of the object 
exhibited had been properly settled would greatly tend to the 
reform of garden nomenclature. 
As Rotany, together with Zoology—the science of living beings 
