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THE PLACE OF LATIN IN SYSTEMATIC BOTANY 
or diagnosis. It is regrettable that their authors should not have seen fit to 
comply with such a reasonable requirement, a requirement designed to secure 
the maximum of publicity for their taxonomic work. There is, however, no 
means of enforcing the International Rules of Nomenclature, and even were it 
possible to ignore the ten thousand irregularly published species, such a course 
would inevitably bring confusion into Systematic Botany, by relegating the 
names of these species to synonymy. In these circumstances the most practical 
course is to replace the Rule prescribing Latin diagnoses by a strong Recom- 
mendation that Latin diagnoses should be supplied, leaving compliance to the 
good sense and public spirit of those who describe new groups. 
It is true that a description in English, French or German can be read by a 
very wide circle of botanists but every description of a new group published 
in these languages encourages publication of new descriptions in less known 
languages such as Swedish, Magyar, Russian or Japanese, which are unknown 
to a great majority of botanists. 
