De I. VNER VEW D Forest Trees of the Pacific Slope

12
D J. VANDERVELDEN
INTRODUCTION.
cited. Each name is held by its advocates to be correctly founded.
In this case the difference of opinion does not involve priority, but the
question of whether or not the earliest name (S. washingtoniana) was
properly established by publication. The author of Taxodium. washingtonianum,
on which Sequoia washingtoniana is based, described it
in untechnical language in a San Francisco newspaper, and not, as
his opponents maintain he should have done, in technical terms and
in a recognized plant journal. The point, in the case of publication
in a newspaper, that the announcement of a new species is not made
to technical readers but to the general public does not, in the writer's
judgment, affect the principle of publicity. In deciding questions of
this kind the writer has felt that if a tree has been named and
definitely enough described or figured in public print to enable a
reader to recognize the tree designated, the author's name of the tree
is justly entitled to recognition, whether or not the description was
technical or was printed in some appropriate journal of standing.
This opinion does not, of course, question the entire propriety and
desirability of describing new species in technical language and announcing
them either in botanical journals or at least in those devoted
to biological subjects.
COMMON NAMES OF TREES.
The selection of common names given here is based upon the
widest usage over most of the trees' ranges. The ideal common
name is one exclusively used for a tree throughout its range. Such
names are rare, but every effort should nevertheless be made to establish
them. The stability of scientific names (which are never knowingly
duplicated), though yet imperfect, is what gives them their
chief advantage over common names.
Unfortunately common names of trees are not always appropriate
or well chosen. They do not, as they should, refer to some striking
characteristic of the tree or of its habitat. Inappropriate names,
however, when once established, can not well be discarded, since usage,
as in language, is really a law, and since if not duplicated for other
trees they may serve as well as more appropriate ones the practical
purpose of names-convenient handles. The deliberate and senseless
application of the same name to two or more species is, however,
something to be avoided and discouraged. It is both unnecessary
and perplexing to have several very different pines called " white
pine." Still more pernicious is the deliberate use of the same name
for two or more trees belonging to entirely distinct genera; for example,
" larch " applied to fir or balsam (a species of Abies), " pine "
applied to spruce (a species of Picea) is inexcusable and misleading.
This misuse of names is most to be deplored when it is intended, as it