80 MR. BENTHAM ON THE PRINCIPLES 



Memorandum on the Principles of Generic Nomenclature in 

 Botany, as referred to in the preceding Paper. Drawn up 

 by Gt. Bentham, Esq., P.L.S. 



[Eead March 3rd, 1857.] 



Two of the chief objects of the systematist in botany are, first, 

 to collect plants into natural groups of successively higher value 

 and greater scope according to their mutual affinities ; and, se- 

 condly, to fix upon certain stages of these successive groups to 

 which names should be attached for the purpose of reference. It 

 is to the latter of these objects that we would now chiefly direct 

 our attention. 



The grand object accomplished by Linnaeus in his nomenclature 

 was to create a language by which plants could be spoken of, and 

 by means of which groups of species (called genera) could be re- 

 ferred to, classed and treated of as easily as the species them- 

 selves. 



He accordingly, treating his genera as entities (to use a word 

 of Jeremy Bentham' s) as natural as species, distributed them for 

 practical purposes into his well-known artificial Classes and 

 Orders. 



The evident facilities for scientific study afl^orded by this group- 

 ing of species into natural genera, prompted Jussieu to carry the 

 principle much higher ; and, whilst he retained Linnean genera as 

 the basis of botanical language, he established, for the purposes of 

 science, his natural orders or groups of genera, which are in fact 

 nothing more than genera of a higher grade, and he distributed 

 these orders or large genera into classes and subclasses. 

 This system of — 

 ' Species grouped into natural genera, 

 Genera grouped into natural orders, and 

 Orders arranged in classes more or less natural ; 

 with a language of — 



Substantive names for the genera. 

 Adjective adjuncts for the species, and 

 Substantively taken adjectives for the orders, 

 has been ever since universally followed in theory, but has been 

 most inconveniently departed from in practice. 



"With the great increase in the number of species known, and 

 the increased facilities for the study of affinities afforded by tlie 



