MR. G. BENTHAM ON EUPHORBIACEJE. 19/ 



him with this piece of vanity. It is probably by a slip of the pen that 



Chrozophora, Neck., has become altered into Crozophora, though it 



is expressly derived from ^pwms, tinctura or coloratio, and cpopos, 



f evens. There is no Greek word from which Crozo could be derived. 



The representing the Greek aspirate by an h was generally 

 neglected by early botanists, but now, ever since De Candolle 

 altered JElichrysum into Helichrysum, modern purists have in- 

 sisted upon inserting the h in all cases ; and this has been so far 

 acquiesced in that it is difficult now to object to it, though it has 

 the effect of removing so many generic names to a distant part 

 of all indexes, alphabetical catalogues, &c. Admitting the pro- 

 priety of adding the aspirate in new names, I had long declined 

 to alter old names on this account ; now r , how r ever, I find myself 

 compelled to follow the current. 



The question of specific nomenclature is not directly connected 

 with a ' Genera Plantarum ; ' but there is one practice which has 

 grown up of late years, adding largely to the number of useless 

 synonyms, against which I cannot refrain from taking this oppor- 

 tunity of entering a strong protest. I mean that of creating a 

 new name in order to combine an old specific with a new generic 

 one. In ferns, the wanton multiplication of ill-defined or un- 

 definable genera, according to the varied fancies of special bota- 

 nists, has had the effect of placing the same species successively 

 in several, sometimes seven or eight, different genera ; and it is 

 proposed to maintain for the specific appellation the right of 

 priority, not in the genus alone in which it is placed, but in the 

 whole of the genera to which, rightly or wrongly, it has been 

 referred. This has been carried to such a degree as to give to the 

 specific name a general substantive aspect, as if the generic ones 

 were mere adjuncts — a serious encroachment on the beautiful 

 simplicity of the Linnean nomenclature ; and it is to be feared 

 that there is a tendency in that direction in phsenogamic botany. 

 When a botanist dismembers an old genus, rule 57 requires that 

 he should strictly preserve the old specific names in his new 

 genera ; and when he has wantonly and knowingly neglected this 

 rule it may be right to correct him. But where a botanist has 

 established what he believes to be a new species, and has there- 

 fore given it a new name, the changing this name after it has 

 got into genera] circulation, because it has been discovered that 

 some other botanist had previously published it in a wrong genus, 

 is only adding a synonym without any advantage whatever, and 



