LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 



from some foreign country whence the plant or tree had been in- 

 troduced into Europe. But there is nothing of the meaningless 

 and cabalistic in any of the 343 generic names that head as many 

 Fuchsian chapters. The meaning is not in every instance plainly 

 to be 'read in the name itself. That which it once had when newly 

 coined, has now and then become obscure, if not quite lost, through 

 the lapse of ages. But there are not yet in botany anagrammatic 

 names, nor any that had been framed by the putting together of 

 two or three meaningless though perhaps euphonious syllables. 

 The beginnings of such an epoch in nomenclature we shall not Jook 

 for until after the time of Linnaeus. 



In specific nomenclature, however, we note in Fuchsius a free 

 use of cabalistic names. In genera of two species one is very apt 

 to be named mas, the other fasmina, and since at that time nothing 

 was known about sexuality in plants, such names had little mean- 

 ing. But quite as frequently the first species is called prima, the 

 other altera; and in the case of his fine plates of six species^of 

 Geranium, they are named G. primum, G. alterum, G. tertium, G. 

 quartum, G. quintum and G. sextum. 1 Though without a trace of 

 diagnostic significancy, and purely cabalistic, we shall find that 

 this kind of specific adjective came into use very extensively in the 

 works of botanists of a generation later than Fuchsius. 



1 Hist. Stirp, pp. 204-210. 



