368 MESSRS. HENRY AND JAMES GROVES ON THE 
The Use of Linnean Specific Names. 
By Heyry Groves, F.L.S., and James Groves, F.L.S. 
(Read 16th January, 1902. | 
WHILE attempting to revise in some measure the nomenclature 
of Babington’s ‘Manual of British Botany’ in connection with 
a posthumous edition of that work, we have been much impressed 
with the great diversity in practice among botanists, both here 
and abroad, in dealing with the Linnean specific names, and we 
have therefore thought it desirable to bring before the Society 
some considerations as to the different methods adopted, with a 
view to a discussion as to which is the least open to objection. 
It seems necessary to arrive at something like an agreement 
as regards the use of the Linnean names, before we can make 
any certain progress in the direction of a stable system of 
nomenclature, and’ a termination of the present diversity of 
opinion, resulting as it does in the continual changing of the 
names of familiar plants, which all feel to be so inconvenient. 
The Linnean specific names fall roughly into three groups :— 
(1) Those applied to distinct species, fairly well understood 
in Linnzus’s time, and still generally accepted. 
(2) Those which are now considered to include two or more 
species combined by Linnzus owing to either 
(a) the imperfect knowledge of the plants at the 
time ; or, 
(b) the different ideas then and now as to the 
extent of species. . , 
(3) Those about which there is more or less doubt as to the 
proper application, owing to | 
(a) the descriptions being imperfect ; 
(4) the synonymy (often more iimportant than the 
description) being contradictory ; or 
(c) the confusion arising from changes made by 
Linneus himself after the first publication. 
With regard to the first group, “Those applied to distinct 
species, fairly well understood in Linneus’s time,” nothing need be 
said, except to point out that they are liable at a future time, 
through advance in our knowledge of the plants, to fall into the 
second group. As an instance of this, we may mention the 
