Page:Journal of botany, British and foreign, Volume 34 (1896).djvu/256

 234 NORGES ARKTISKE FLORA. this subject. The name of each plant consists of a generic and a specific designation, and the author of the name is the botanist who first gave it to the plant. Mr. Seward deals very differently with the names of his fossils. Take as an example the plant whose name he gives as Dioonites Brongniarti (Mant.). This is how the synonymy is recorded : — 1833 Cycadites Brongniarti Mantell, 1841 Pterophyllum Brongniarti Morris, 1842 Hisingera Mantellii Miquel, 1844 Nilssonia Brongniarti Brown, 1849 Zamites Brongniarti Brong- niart, 1850 Nilssonia Brongniarti Unger, Nilssonia Brongniarti Bronn and Komer, 1852 Nilssonia Brongniarti Ettingshausen (this is a strange innovation : the species is Bronn's and should be quoted as Bronn in Unger, I. c. &c.), 1856 Nilssonia Brongniarti Borneman 1871 Dioonites Brongniarti Schenk., 1874 Dioonites Brongniarti Schimper, Pterophyllum Brong7iiarti Topley, Dioo7iites Brongniarti Renault, Dioonites Kotoel Yokoyama. In this list the author of the name is neglected, and each writer who has used the name is treated as if he were its author. For another species the author employs the name Bennettites (Cycadeoidea) Saxbyanus (Brown). Brown called it Cycadites Saxbyanus ; the author of the trinominal is Mr. Seward. It is very desirable to adopt a recognized system and to follow it. But from the quotations given in this notice it must be evident that the author is not in accord with botanists in his treatment of existing names. When it is a matter of securing greater fitness by a new name as compared with the existing name, no finality can be reached in nomenclature. Would that no one were allowed to touch Systematic Botany until he had mastered the principles and become acquainted with some of the generally accepted rules of botanical nomenclature ! . W. C. Norges Arktiske Flora. By J. M. Norman. Parts I. and II. Pp. 760, 442. Kristiana. 1894-5. (With a Map.) This is a work which must have cost the author an immense amount of time and patience. The only book on British Botany which (so far as I know) can be at all compared with it is Mr. Watson's GeograpJiical Distribution of British Plants (1843) ; but that has not one-sixth of the work in it that Dr. Norman's has. The author defines Arctic Norway as Norway north of the Arctic " Polar " Circle. The introductory matter runs to forty-five pages, and consists of a list of the seven divisions (lettered A to G) into which he divides the country ; these are again divided into 25 districts, and again into about 220 sub-districts, with about 650 localities, which, however, consist in some cases of the north or south slope of certain mountains. The actual stations for plants represent about 1500 habitats — or, roughly, some 48,000 for RaniinculacecB to Pyrolacece; a list of the sub-districts with their latitude, height in metres (corrected for temperature) ; a similar list with the dates (and notes of the exposure, &c.) when observed ; and a list of heights, in which 1526 metres seems to be the highest. Although these heights are given in metres, in the body of the work