66 The Scottish Naturalist. 



with the classes marked out by limited men." (" Eckermann's 

 Conversations," p. 295.) The Linnrcan Latin names for species 

 and genera were so good that they have been retained. The 

 natural system, based mainly, but not exclusively, on the fructifica- 

 tion and the most perfect system as yet devised, is due to the 

 labours of the great French botanist, Jussieu, who was under 

 much obligation to the equally great Englishman, John Ray, and 

 whose work has been further improved upon by De Candolle, 

 Robert Brown, Lindley, and others. 



x\ccording to the English Cyclopaedia, there are at least 100,000 

 known species of plants arranged in about 7000 genera — a multi- 

 tude such as no single life would be able to survey ; but, thanks 

 to the admirable system of nomenclature and subordination of 

 species under genera, natural orders, divisions, sub-classes and 

 classes, it is possible to collect, under about 300 heads, the vast 

 mass of characters required to distinguish them, while a know- 

 ledge of some 200 heads is sufficient for the purpose of the 

 ordinary observer. The sub-division of a species into varieties, 

 constituted by some individuals of a species showing certain minor 

 characteristics not possessed by the rest, tends still further to extend 

 and complicate the work of investigating plant names. In dealing 

 with a subject so extensive and various as this has been shown to 

 be, the great difficulty is to hit upon a system of classification which, 

 while embracing in distinct divisions a number of what may be 

 called representative names, shall neither fall into the fault of 

 giving the same name under two or more divisions — i.e., shall not 

 overlap, nor, on the other hand, omit to take notice of any class 

 of names that should be kept distinct. I cannot claim that the 

 scheme adopted in the remainder of this paper satisfies all the 

 conditions of a good classification. It has, at all events, been 

 approved only after trying and rejecting other schemes, and after 

 a careful survey of the field to be mapped out. The scheme is 

 divided into the following heads designed to show chiefly the 

 various ways in which plants have come by the names they now 

 bear : — 



I. Named after persons. 

 II. Named from myths. 



III. Named from places. 



IV. Native names. 



V. From real or fancied properties of the plant. 

 VI. From uses to which the plant lias been put. 

 VII. From likeness to other objects. 



