122 SMITHSONIAN" MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



vincial. Theophrastus' work, in as far as relates to taxonomy and 

 nomenclature, is provincial; not a universal flora, but a somewhat 

 local one. It was not a perfect pattern for the universal. There 

 is also a certain lack of uniformity in a system of nomenclature 

 which fails to provide every species with a distinctively specific 

 name; and it was nothing more than the desirability of uniformity 

 which brought about the modern usage. But, as we shall see, 

 this question was long in controversy, and was settled late. 



Matters of nomenclature and taxonomy are almost inseparably 

 connected. The name itself is but the expression of a taxonomic 

 idea. Excepting those rare instances in which an individual 

 historic tree has received a proper name, every plant name that 

 ever was, in any language, is the name of a group. Naming is 

 classifying. The Theophrastan names for pomaceous and dru- 

 paceous genera have been above placed in close succession, and 

 opposite them Linnaeus' disposal of the same type. By comparing 

 those several names it is readily seen that the eleven species are 

 distributed to five genera by Linnaeus, whereas by Theophrastus 

 they had represented nine. In what may be called the average 

 twentieth-century classification of them, as far as the century 

 has proceeded, the same eleven species are ranged under about 

 eight genera, namely Amelanchier, Cotoneaster, Crataegus, Cydonia, 

 Sorbus, Cerasus, Padus, Prunus. If we of the present are correct, 

 the mean between Theophrastus and Linnaeus is the happy one; 

 and this in any case must be admitted, that every revulsion against 

 the Linnaean taxonomy of these fruit trees is a step in return 

 toward the Theophrastan. The same sort of departing and then 

 returning finds illustration in the naming of water lilies as that was 

 done formerly, and has been done over again of late. 



Theophrastan Linnaean Recent 



Nymphaia Nymphaea lutea Nymphaea lutea. 



Sida 1 Nymphasa alba Castalia alba. 



Lotos Nymphaea Lotus Castalia Lotus. 



Cyamos 2 Nymphaea Nelumbo Nelumbo speciosa. 



The Greek, it is thus seen, received the four species as representing 

 each a genus. With Linnaeus the genus of them all was one ; while 

 recent systematists have well-nigh completely returned to the 

 Theophrastan view, in all save the names of the genera ; and the 



1 Linnaeus, suppressing the white water lily genus, daringly transferred 

 its name to that of a genus of insignificant malvaceous weeds. 



2 Sir J. E. Smith, most ardent Linnaean though he was, restored Cyamus 

 instead of Nelumbo, insisting on its right of priority. 



