172 ox A POINT IN BOTAXICAL NOMENCLATURE. 



even to tlie authors wlio described plants before Linnaeus reformed 

 nomenclature, whose names have been appended as authorities to 

 the names of the species which they described. Few writers have 

 gone so far as this, yet it is worth w^hile for those who are disposed 

 to think that it is the name of the first describer of a species that 

 should follow its scientific title to remember that by far the great 

 majority of the species to which Linn, is attached were neither 

 discovered nor described by that master of method. The more, 

 however, that this matter is looked into, the more clearly it 

 appears desirable to insist that the history of a plant is one thing, 

 the name which has to be adopted for it is another. The synonymy 

 and history of a sj)ecies must be worked out in detail, and requh'e 

 to be fully exhibited ; they cannot be usefully amalgamated with 

 the name." 



These matters are not unconnected with the position taken up 

 by Mr. Ball, if we may add to his precepts his practice as exliibited 

 in the recently-published ' Spicilegium Florae Maroccan^e.' t The 

 new rule and the principles advocated have incidentally resulted in 

 a nomenclature which cannot be considered an improvement on 

 the old system. Instead of the binary nomenclature to which we 

 are all accustomed, by the new system we have often four words in 

 the name besides the authority. This has come about by the 

 necessity of trying to avoid " making an author say what he has not 

 said " (to use Prof. DeCandolle's words) which the new rule is very 

 likely to effect. Let us take, for mstance, the species Mr. Ball has 

 employed in his paper as a typical case, Arenaria diandm, Guss. 

 He refers the plant to Spergulana, and according to the practice 

 advocated above he should take the earliest name in that genus, 

 and call the plant Sjjergularia patens, Hochst. But by the new 

 rule he is bound to restore the specific half of Gussone's name 

 (though it is not very appropriate), and write Spergulana diandra. 

 As Boissier has abeady done this, the name should be S. diandra, 

 Boiss. But Mr. Ball thinks it proper to Amte " S. diandra, Guss. 

 (sub Arenaria.y It is clear that this name and authority ivithoiit 

 the portion in brackets does not exi3ress a true statement of fact ; 

 indeed it is making Gussone say what he has not said ; his name 

 is appended to a combination made by Boissier, and of which he 

 might have disapproved. The portion in brackets is intended to 

 explain this mis-statement ; but after more than a century of the 

 binominal nomenclature we really camiot go back to names five 

 words long. 



It is true that the above system of quotation is no necessary 

 part of carrying out the new rule, but it has been followed by 

 M. Boissier and some others who advocate its adoption as well as 

 by Mr. Ball. It appears to spring from a reluctance to placing as 

 tlie authority the name of a writer who may have merely made a 

 transfer, and from a desire to give a piece of the history of the 



* On this point, see some excellent observations, by Prof. A. Gray, in ' Jonrn. 

 Bot.,' 1804, p. 1S9-100 (extracted from ' Silliman's Journal.') 

 t Mourn, Linn. Soc. Lend.,' vol. xvi, 



