694 president's address. 



How could Dodoens, for example, call a plant Bantmculus 

 acquatilis when the genus was not founded until 117 years later % 

 It is absurd on the face of it. All the names in the table are 

 pre-Linnean. 



Trihulus terrestris is a name attributed in the ' Census ' to 

 L'Obel (1581), both as regards genus and species. I give this 

 because it is an Australian instance, but other authors quote 

 many more. It is not quite straightforward to attempt to take 

 awa}' from Linnteus the credit of the binomial system. It is quite 

 true that some of the early writers occasionall}' use binomials, but 

 that is a mere accident and has no signiticance. Sometimes a 

 name may consist of eight or ten words, but oftener the names 

 are three- or four-worded or more, and such adventitious binomials 

 have nothing to do with Linnajus' binomial S3^stem. 



But Mueller's action in not contenting' himself with ooino; back 

 to the author of binomials, but limiting himself to the sixteenth 

 century, is eclipsed by that of Prof. Edward L. Greene,"^ the 

 Californian botanist, who in certain cases goes right back to 

 antiquity, fathering some of his genera on Catullus, Virgil, 

 Theophrastus and Pliny. 



But why, oh wdi}^ ! stop at such a latter-day botanist as 

 Catullus'? Let us explore the Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Assyrian 

 tile-books, and delve into the innermost recesses of Persian 

 antiquit}^ for botanical names, and, when we ha^e found them, 

 let us be sure thatwe fit them on to the right plants. Let us not be 

 daunted by the fact that of the few plants referred to in Holy 

 Scripture very few are determinable with certainty. Of those 

 that are so determinable, why does not Prof. Greene consider 

 their Greek or Hebrew, or Chaldean equivalents as worthy of 

 record as those of Catullus ? Is botanical nomenclature to be 

 kept in a simmering chaos until such time as architologists 

 determine the names our first parents assigned to plants in the 

 Garden of Eden 1 



American Nomenclature Again,' Journ. Bot. xxix. 810. 



