LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 305 



of fifteen generic names that ought ever to have been displaced. It 

 will hardly be possible to point out one of them which is not as good 

 as its modern equivalent. Yet Helianthemum is the only one of 

 the fifteen that never has been set aside; and the suppression of 

 the rest is mainly to be attributed to Linnaeus' recklessness in the 

 matter of priority in nomenclature. 



While most of Valerius Cordus' new generic names are of the 

 universally acceptable one-worded type, it is clear from the follow- 

 ing list that he did not find the binary sort objectionable. 



Cordus Modern 



Chelidonium palustre Caltha. 



Chelidonium phragmites Corydalis. 



Hepatica alba Parnassia. 



Pentaphyllum palustre Comarum. 



Trifolium palustre Menyanthes. 



Here again I apprehend a difficulty on the part of many a reader 

 to see that these two-worded names are purely generic; we are so 

 perfectly accustomed all our life long to read every such name as 

 being half generic, half specific; and so I affirm again that not one 

 of those second and adjective terms is a specific name at all. Collo- 

 quially, and in our vernacular, we make use of two-worded generic 

 names most freely without thought of impropriety. When we 

 speak of Rose (=Rosa), Christmas Rose ( = Helleborus), Rock Rose 

 ( = Cistus) and Guelder Rose (=<^pulus) we have no such thought as 

 that all these are so many different kinds, or species, of Rose. No 

 more had Valerius Cordus any such thought as that the four types 

 which he knew as Chelidonium majus, Chelidonium minus, Cheli- 

 donium palustre, and Chelidonium phragmites were four kinds or 

 species, of Celandine. To his mind they were as clearly four dis- 

 tinct genera as their respective modern equivalents Chelidonium, 

 Ficaria, Caltha, and Corydalis are different genera to the mind of the 

 botanist of to-day. 



Nevertheless there were people in Cordus' time and before that, - 

 untaught, unbotanical botanists to whom such binary generic 

 names were a stumbling block ; people who supposed that the above 

 four were but so many kinds of celandine, being misled by the 

 reiteration of the substantive part of the name; and Cordus, while 

 himself creating some such double generic appellations, suppresses 

 several of the older ones in favor of new ones of one term ; and this 

 as if to correct in each instance a deep-seated popular error. The 

 labiate plant known now as Glechoma had long been known in Latin 



