290 SPECIFIC NAMES. 



from America, americanus. The use of a plant is 

 often commodiously expressed in its specific name, as 

 Brassica oleracea, Papaver somniferum, Inocarpus 

 edulis ; so is likewise its time of flowering, as Primula 

 veris, Leucojum vernum^ cestlvum and autumnak^ and 

 Helleborm hyemalis. 



When a plant has been erroneously made a distinct 

 genus, the name so applied to it may be retained for 

 a specific appellation, as LathrcRCi Phdypcea^ and 

 Bartsia Gymnandra ; which may also be practised 

 when a plant has been celebrated, either in botanical, 

 medical, or any other history, by a particular name, 

 as Origanum Dictajmius, Artemisia Draamculus, 

 Laurus Cinnamomum, Selinum CarvifoUay Carica 

 Papaya. In either case the specific name stands as a 

 substantive, retaining its own gender and termination, 

 and must begin with a capital letter ; which last cir- 

 cumstance should be observed if a species be called 

 after any botanist who has more particularly illustrated 

 it, as Cortusa MatthioU and C. Gmelini, Duranta 

 Plumierii, and Alutisii. Tiie latter genus suggests an 

 improvement in such kind of names. The genitive case 

 is rightly used for the person who founded the genus, 

 D. Plumierii; D. Mutisiaria might serve to commemo- 

 rate the finder of a species, while D. ElUsia implies the 

 plant which bears it to have been once called ElUsia. 



There is another sort of specific names in the geni- 

 tive case, which are to me absolutely intolerable, though 

 contrived by Linnaeus in his latter days These are of 



