USE OF LINNEAN SPECIFIC NAMES. 369 
Common Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), which up to quite 
recently has been regarded as a single species, but, in 
Mr. Townsend’s recent Monograph, 18 species are discriminated 
from this country alone. 
With regard to the second group, “Those which are now 
considered to include two or more species combined by Linneus,” 
the methods adopted are :— 
(a) To discard the Linnean names altogether, or to employ 
them for sectional or mother species only, adopting more 
recent names, originated to represent, more or less 
exactly, the species as at present constituted. 
(6) To retain the names for one or other of the segregate 
species. 
The arguments in favour of the first alternative, that of rejecting 
the names, appear at first sight very forcible. Its advocates 
contend that to employ a Linnean name to denote a part only 
of the Linnean species, is a wrong use of words, and is making 
Linnzus say what he did not mean, that the provision in the“ Laws 
of botanical nomenclature ” for adding “pro parte,” “ ex parte,” or 
the like, after the authority, to show that it is not intended to 
denote the whole of the original species, is really no safeguard 
against this misrepresentation ; experience showing that although 
such explanations may be added in Monographs and other works 
on a large scale, in the more ordinary use of names, such as for 
labelling and cataloguing, the explanations would be dropped, 
besides which, such additions to the authority are undesirable, 
both as lengthening the reference and introducing an ambiguity. 
It is also contended that by retaining the names for segregates, 
the same name at different dates represents altogether different 
values, and that confusion is likely to arise therefrom. 
In favour of the second alternative, that of retaining the 
name for one or other of the segregate species, it is urged that 
it is, broadly speaking, the plan generally adopted, that u 
conduces to greater stability in nomenclature, and that it 
avoids a considerable and continuous increase in the number of 
names. 
If the limits of the systematic knowledge of plants were 
reached, it might perhaps be desirable to use the names given to 
the species by the first authors who thoroughly understood the 
limits of each of them; but so far from this being the state of 
things, species are continually being split up, and to carry the 
