HISTORY OF BOTANY. 69 



system; and it would seem doubtful if there is anything 

 more to be said in favour of these so-called barbarous names, 

 than that from want of that lively and fanciful imagination 

 which Linneus possessed so largely ; or from the difficulty, 

 if not impossibility, of finding some special botanical differ- 

 ence which should distinguish a genus from all others, and 

 could be commodiously expressed by a Greek or Latin 

 name, botanists have been forced to take the best course 

 they knew. 



I just mentioned the lively imagination of Linneus ; Smith 

 thus draws attention to some of his quaint fancies : — " Lin- 

 nscus in his entertaining book ' Critica Botanica ' has in 

 several instances drawn a fanciful analogy between botanists 

 and their appropriate plants — thus, Bauhinia, after the two 

 distinguished brothers John and Caspar Bauhin, has a 

 two-lobed or twin leaf. Scheuchzeria, a grassy alpine plant, 

 commemorates the two Scheuchzers, one of whom excelled 

 in the knowledge of alpine plants, the other in that of grasses. 



" Dorstenia, with its obsolete flowers devoid of all beauty, 

 alludes to the antiquated and uncouth book of Dorstenius. 



"Hernandia, an American plant, the most beautiful of 

 all trees in its foliage, but furnished with trifling blossoms, 

 bears the name of a botanist highly favoured by fortune, 

 and allowed an ample salary for the purpose of investigating 

 the Natural History of the western world, but whose labours 

 have not answered the expense," Sec. 



This may be called scientific trifling, and Smith chuckles 

 over instances where, coupled with a trivial name, such 

 a plan has become offensive. " Buffonia tenuifolia," he 

 says, " is well known to be a satire on the slender botanical 

 pretensions of the great French zoologist, as the Hillia 



liabit of first laying down the principles and rules by which he guided 

 himself in his writings. We find a set of similar canons in the intro- 

 duction to different works of his. 



