LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY — GREENE I23 



restoration of even these will follow, under the law of priority. 

 The shortcomings of Theophrastan nomenclature as to uni- 

 formity have not all been indicated. There is one other. While 

 something like half his plant species have but a single one-worded 

 name and that the generic, there are not a few of his genera that 

 are invested with a double — that is, a two-worded name. It is 

 highly important that this be fully understood. This kind of 

 name is frequent with every botanical author that I am acquainted 

 with, between Theophrastus and Linnaeus; and with this fact 

 overlooked there is no understanding any single pre-Linnaean 

 author's plant names either generic or specific. Nor have I found 

 any writer of botanical history making so much as a passing 

 reference to this. I subjoin a very few such Theophrastan genus 

 names as samples; giving, as usual, their equivalents, with also the 

 specific names as now in use. 



Theophrastan Modem. 



Calamos Euosmos Acorus Calamus. 



Dios Anthos Agrostemma Flos Jo vis. 



Dios Balanos Castanea vesca. 



Carya Persica Juglans regia. 



Syce Idaia Amelanchier vulgaris. 



Ampelos Idaia Tamus communis. 



Most of the names in the left-hand column have exactly the 

 form and structure of ordinary generico-specific binaries, one term 

 being a noun, the other a qualifying adjective. Their respective 

 equivalents placed over against them demonstrate beyond cavil 

 that these particular binaries are not of the usual meaning of such 

 two-fold names, but are purely generic. To take up the first on the 

 list: Theophrastus has a genus Calamos, the great reed-grass arundo 

 its type, phragmites also being included in the genus. It is not 

 imaginable that a botanist of Theophrastus' ripe experience and 

 great attainments should think those large grass-plants and the 

 sweet-flag to be of the same genus. Beyond doubt, however, that 

 name Calamos euosmos did originate in the notion that arundo and 

 acorus are next of kin; for, however unlike they are as to size, 

 foliage, and other particulars, there is a remarkably close similarity 

 in their rootstocks, these being of almost the same size, form, and 

 color in the two. The gatherers of roots and herbs, as we know, 

 looked first of all to the "roots" of things, and these were their 

 first criteria of plant relationships. To these it would be perfectly 

 natural to place the sweet-flag alongside arundo, the true ndXa^o?, 



