392 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



Species by the name of the genus, with the addition of a "phrase" to 

 distinguish the species. These phrases, (expressed in Latin in the 

 ablative case,) were such as not only to mark, but to describe the 

 species, and were intended to contain such features of the plant as 

 were sufficient to distinguish it from others of the same genus. But 

 in this way the designation of a plant often became a long and incon- 

 venient assemblage of words. Thus different kinds of Rose were 

 described as, 



Rosa campestris, spinis carens, biflora (Rosa alpina. ) 

 Rosa aculeata, foliis odoratis subtus rubiginosis (R. eglanteria.) 

 Rosa Carolina fragrans, foliis medio temis serratis (R. Carolina.) 

 Rosa sylvestris vulgaris, flore odorato incarnate (R. canina.) 



And several others. The prolixity of these appellations, their variety 

 in every different author, the insufficiency and confusion of the dis- 

 tinctions which they contained, were felt as extreme inconveniences. 

 The attempt of Bauhin to remedy this evil by a Synonymy, had, as we 

 have seen, failed at the time, for want of any directing principle ; and 

 was become still more defective by the lapse of years and the accumu- 

 lation of fresh knowledge and new books. Haller had proposed to 

 distinguish the species of each genus by the numbers 1, 2, 3, and so 

 on ; but botanists found that their memory could not deal with such 

 arbitrary abstractions. The need of some better nomenclature was 

 severely felt. 



The remedy which Linnaeus finally introduced was the use of trivial 

 names ; that is, the designation of each species by the name of the 

 genus along with a single conventional word, imposed without any 

 general rule. Such names are added above in parentheses, to the 

 specimens of the names previously in use. But though this remedy 

 was found -to be complete and satisfactory, and is now universally 

 adopted in every branch of natural history, it was not one of the 

 reforms whioh Linnseus at first proposed. Perhaps he did not at first 

 see its full value ; or, if he did, we may suppose that it required more 

 self-confidence than he possessed, to set himself to introduce and esta- 

 blish ten thousand new names in the botanical world. Accordingly, 

 the first attempts of Linnaeus at the improvement of the nomenclature 

 of botany were, the proposal of fixed and careful rules for the generic 

 name, and for the descriptive phrase. Thus, in his Critica Botanica, 

 TO givos many precepts concerning the selection of the names of gene- 



