Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/252

230 NOTICES OF BOOKS. " Pseudo-Nomenclature." A PRIVATELY printed pamphlet bearing this title has been distri- buted by Mr. W. H. Beeby during the past month. It consists of a paper on the 9th edition of the London Catalogue, occupying three pages, which was offered to this Journal in August, 1895, and a postscript, to which seven pages are devoted. Mr. Beeby quotes a sentence from the private letter in which we declined to publish the paper in these pages. That sentence hardly affords an adequate statement of our reasons : and as, through Mr. Beeby's kindness, we have a copy of the letter, it seems worth while to print it here, in order that it may be read by those who possess Mr. Beeby's pamphlet, and that the grounds of our action may be clearly understood. It runs thus : — 18, West Square, Southwark, S.E., Sept. 5, 1895. My dear Beeby, — I have written two letters to you about the notes on •'L. Cat.," and have torn them both up. The fact is, I do not know what to say about the paper, except that I could not print it in its present form. The remarks on Sparganium seem to imply that some people unnamed have " with deliberate intent " altered the nomenclature in that genus. Of course every alteration was niade "with deliberate intent" — but I am certain (for I was at every meeting of the Committee) that there was no intention of annoying you, nor do I know who made the alteration. As a matter of nomenclature it seems to me that S. ramosum Huds. should be recognised, just as similar names have been and are -but on this you have of course every right to your view. But if I were to publish your notes as they stand, they would lead to a long and angry discussion, which would have no good result. It seems to me that all through your tone is — shall I say captious? — witness the remark on what the "anonymous authority" would have done, on p. 3 [p. 2 in printed copy] — and the note on the obvious slip ^^Jnnciis glaucus Leers." I should not be sorry to see "an independent catalogue of British plants," but, judging from the labour which the revision of the present one involved, I do not envy the man who undertakes its compilation ! Yours very truly, James Britten. We do not propose to reprint or comment upon Mr. Beeby's views as to nomenclature — which, indeed, we do not fully compre- hend — for these are doubtless in the hands of every reader of the Journal, or can be obtained from the author, whose address is Burwood Park Eoad, Walton on Thames. But we must take ex- ception to his statement that this Journal is ** the organ of a clique," which "resents anything like interference with that nomenclature hy dogma — the italics are Mr. Beeby's — "which it is its aim to inculcate." Mr. Beeby, indeed, supplies the correction to this inaccurate view ; for having adduced in support of it the absence from these pages of any report of Mr. Dyer's speech at the British Association last September, he mentions in a footnote that part of the address it'as printed, though " since [his postscript] was written." Why Mr. Beeby should nevertheless allow his original statement to stand we do not know ; but as he seems to imply that our delay