NAMING OF PLANTS 29 



Suborders, or groups between orders and genera, terminate in 

 -ece. Names of genera are nouns or words taken as nouns. They 

 are derived from any source, from prominent or peculiar char- 

 acteristics, from localities, or from names of botanists, or they 

 may be wholly arbitrary. Personal generic names are divested 

 of titles and take a final , or, in many cases, for euphony, ia. 

 Thus, Ulva is the Latin for " sedge " ; Ectocarpus is from two 

 Greek words meaning "fruit outside"; Corallina means "coral- 

 like " ; Grinnellia is named for Mr. Henry Grinnell. 



The specific names are commonly adjectives, but sometimes 

 they are nouns, and occasionally are the names of the botanists 

 who first described the plants, in which case the name terminates 

 in -i or -ii. The specific name always follows the generic name, 

 thus: 



Ectocarpus Hooperi, a species of Ectocarpus, first described by 

 Mr. Hooper. 



Grinnellia Americana, a species, peculiar to America, of a genus 

 named for Mr. Grinnell. 



Griffitlisia corattina, a species resembling coral, and belonging 

 to a genus named for Mrs. Griffiths. 



With regard to the four subclasses mentioned above, it should 

 be said that algae are strictly classified in accordance with their 

 methods of reproduction ; but since allied species have, with few 

 exceptions, the same color, the classification by colors is generally 

 adopted as convenient and sufficiently precise. 



Familiar, or, in technical language, " vulgar," names are very 

 generally given to land plants, and. especially to flowers; but sea- 

 weeds are less in sight than flowers are, and so, save in a few 

 instances, have not been named .except by the man of science. 

 To remember the scientific names will not be found difficult, for 

 without effort or special pains to acquire the new vocabulary, 

 the names, like those of new personal friends, will insensibly 

 become fixed in the memory. 



In the body of this work each of the groups (class, subclass, 

 order, etc.), in the classification of both animals and plants, is 

 indicated by a special kind of type. 



