184 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 54 



recent centuries has been attained to. Thus may we learn, and 

 thus only, the lesson of the modern development of the very old 

 idea of plant families. 



Nomenclature. All plant names are names of groups; and to 

 group things together under a common name is to classify. No- 

 menclature and classification are therefore so intimately connected 

 that neither topic can be fully discussed apart from some consider- 

 ation of the other. They can not be completely divorced ; and so 

 it was inevitable that something in relation to Brunfels as nomencla- 

 tor should be brought out under the heading of taxonomy. It 

 will be useful, however, to epitomize his work as nomenclator, and 

 particularly since he now and then evinces a disposition to amend 

 and improve upon ancient and mediaeval names and name-making 

 methods; or, it might perhaps better be said, a disposition to return 

 from mediaeval to ancient methods; for what I have in mind is 

 something like a distinction which, in a general way, holds between 

 what may be termed the ancient and the mediaeval plant naming. 

 It is, however, not much more than a difference between the genius 

 of the Greek language and that of the Latin as to manner of fram- 

 ing distinctive names for things. 



In Greek the noun and adjective readily combine to form a 

 single word, such word beginning with the adjective part and ending 

 with the noun; whereas in Latin noun and adjective are kept as 

 distinct words, even with the noun rather than the adjective 

 standing first. To make this as plain as possible let us use a few 

 examples : 



Greek Latin 



Leucoion Viola alba 



Melanion Viola nigra 



Chrysion Viola aurea 



Herpetion Viola repens 



Chelidonion Viola hirundinaria 



By many scores of such one-worded Greek plant names which 

 by translation into Latin become binaries, there is revealed one 

 of the misfortunes under which mediaeval and early renaissance 

 botany labored everywhere — for mediaeval botany was Latin botany 

 — that of having in its employment hundreds of binary names, 

 some of which were of specific import, while as many more were 

 but the names of monotypic genera. 



The continual perplexities involved in this phase of nomenclature 

 seem to have exercised the mind of Brunfels to a degree, so that 



