LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 2 17 



with Vitis rendered it needful that the original Vitis should receive 

 also a second and modifying term in order to avoid confusion; and 

 thus there came into existence, and of necessity, the generic name 

 Vitis vinifera instead of the simple and primitive Vitis. Let us 

 see what Fuchsius' genera of which this term is a part of the name, 

 really are : 



Fuchsian Recent 



Vitis vinifera Vitis 



Vitis alba Bryonia 



Vitis nigra Clematis 



Specific names, with this German father, quite as with all his 

 forbears that I know aught about from Theophrastus forward, are 

 strictly binary. One simple word, almost always adjective, 

 constitutes the specific term of such binary, and is the cognomen, 

 as some called it. It happens, indeed, with many a such binary 

 name that it is composed of three separate words ; but that is always 

 for the reason that the generic name is of two words. Not much 

 less than a hundred of Linnaeus' trivial names of plants are of three 

 distinct words; but this is because he makes the specific part 

 of such names to consist of two words, and never the generic part. 

 This is precisely the difference between the Fuchsian and the Lin- 

 naean binary nomenclature; and there exists no other difference. 

 We amend Linnasus by connecting by a hyphen his two-worded 

 specific names. This is done in order to preclude if possible any 

 questioning of the fact that the two words which we have hy- 

 phenated are to be thought of as one. It were equally in place to 

 hyphenate the terms of Fuchsius' two-worded generic names. 

 This done, he who ran might read the truth that all Fuchsian plant 

 names not those of monotypic genera are as strictly binary as those 

 of Linnaeus; with even this one difference in Fuchsius' favor, that 

 he has no two-worded specific names. 



As to general principles of botanical nomenclature, those of 

 Fuchsius seem few, and easily ascertained. Those principles appear 

 to be convenience, etymological suitability, brevity. 



If all his names are binary, and, as being the mere names, hold 

 places entirely apart and distinct from the descriptive paragraphs, 

 as they always do, then there is not even the suggestion in Fuchs- 

 ius of those "phrase names," so called, which became a burden 

 upon the phytography of two centuries later; and it may be said of 

 his work that it is quite a model of brevity in nomenclature. 



Inasmuch as the Greek names of genera are older than the Latin, 



