The Scottish Naturalist. 107 



fundamental division of plants came to be based on embryology, 

 that the names significant of that fact (viz., dicotyledons and 

 monocotyledons) should take precedence of all others ; just as it 

 was a gain in zoology to exchange such a misleading word as 

 Cuvier's Articulata for the more exact name Anriulosa. 



The second of the above cases is equally clear, and is compara- 

 tively common, and must continue to arise so long as knowledge 

 continues to accumulate, and fresh discoveries to be made. For 

 example, Cuvier's Radiata, in the animal world, answered the 

 purpose very well so long as the Cuvierian sub-kingdoms repre- 

 sented the highest classifying achievement. But, whenever the 

 groups designated by that term came to be re-arranged in accord- 

 ance with fuller knowledge and more accurate discriminations, the 

 term itself had to be discarded ; and, to have retained it after its 

 distinctive meaning was gone, or to have appropriated it to a por- 

 tion of what it formerly denoted, would have been misleading in 

 the extreme and unscientific. So with similar instances both in 

 zoology and in botany : a change in name should accompany a 

 change of grouping; but, when no change in grouping is effected, 

 it is confusing in the highest degree to tamper with the ter- 

 minology, even when by so doing we introduce a linguistic im- 

 provement. 



The other great exception is the third of the cases above re- 

 ferred to — when a particular name transgresses the accepted prin- 

 ciple of naming. An excellent example is found in the Natural 

 Orders of Botany. It is a well-known fact that the botanical 

 orders are designated from some typical genus of the order — as 

 when the genus Ranunculus gives us Ranunculaceae, or the genus 

 Papaver Papaveracere, or the genus Scrophularia Scrophulariacese ; 

 and in this way the ordinal name is made to indicate a significant 

 peculiarity : it embodies a reference to one characteristic genus of 

 the order. But, as matter of fact, several of the ordinal names 

 have been imposed irrespective of this consideration, and thereby 

 unnecessary confusion has been introduced. A case in point is 

 the Labiate. There is no such genus as the Labiates, or lipped 

 flowers at all ; neither is the name itself absolutely distinctive of 

 the order to which it is applied. For the Labiates are by no 

 means all lipped flowers, while there are many lipped flowers out- 

 side the Labiate family. It was, therefore, with great reason that 

 Lindley proposed to supplant the term Labiatse by the term 



