258 HELEN A. CHOATE 



binary system of nomenclature, that is, one in which a plant 

 received two distinct designations, a generic and a specific, gradu- 

 ally evolved, varying in form from the concise names used by 

 Brunfels, where a single word commonly served for a specific 

 name, to the wordy phrases of later authors. In 1623 appeared 

 a work epoch-making in biological nomenclature — Caspar Bauhin's 

 Pinax Theatri Botanici, an exhaustive synonymy of all the species 

 of plants then known. But of chief importance from our point 

 of view is the fact that here the binary system of nomenclature 

 is definitely recognized and consistently followed. No new fea- 

 tures were introduced, but the complete and authoritative charac- 

 ter of the book was such as to gain general acceptance of the 

 methods therein adopted. This point Sachs emphasizes, and 

 claims that for this reason as much, if not more, credit should 

 be given to Bauhin as to Linnaeus, who, says Sachs, merely 

 adopted this system of Bauhin's and established- its universal 

 use by his employment of it in his extensive systematic studies 

 which were of world wide influence. Greene 2 in his admirable 

 Landmarks of Botanical History, as well as in personal communi- 

 cations, for which, with much other helpful counsel, I am most 

 greatly indebted to him, expresses substantially the same view. 

 This is the basis for the second of the aforementioned two views 

 held today, but its supporters fail to recognize any difference 

 between our modern binomial system in the formation of which 

 Linnaeus had so large a part, where both the generic and specific 

 name are intentionally limited to one word, and this binary system 

 culminating in the work of Bauhin, the main points of which 

 may be summarized as follows: (1) Every plant received both 

 a generic and a specific name; (2) The generic name might con- 

 sist of more than one word ; (3) The specific name might consist 

 of several words constituting a descriptive phrase; (4) The generic 

 and specific name might each consist of a single word, thus mak- 

 ing the name binomial. Such binomials, however, it must be 

 remembered, were purely accidental and represented no definite 

 system. 



2 Greene, Edw. L., Landmarks of Botanical History. Smithsonian Miscel- 

 laneous Collections, p. 31, 1909. 



