dt OUTLINE OF STRUCTURAL BOTANY 
the system now current; hence Viola remains in all countries the 
name of a group of plants having many common characteristics, 
while the specific name tricolor, also given by the same great botan- 
ist, remains the name for this particular species. 
Tn writing this name botanists are accustomed to follow it by the 
name or the initial letter of the authority giving the name; thus, 
Viola tricolor, I. But another species of Viola described and 
named by the botanist De Candolle is Viola arenaria, DC. 
A plant which has been assigned to a Genus, not the one to which 
it was originally assigned, retains the specific name given by the 
first authority whose name follows in brackets and the name of the 
later authority follows this: thus, Ranunculus Cymbalaria, Pursh, 
is now Oxygraphis Cymbalaria (Pursh), Prantl. 
It must be acknowledged, even by those who do not like to charge 
their memories with unfamiliar names, that this general system is 
most important and even necessary, yet it is unfortunate that so 
many men of learning have, in the naming of the plants which they 
have described, forgotten that simplicity and euphony should char- 
acterize the nomenclature of objects of interest. 
It is an interesting and most fortunate fact that the great 
Linnaeus, who introduced and established the double-name system 
and who gave their names to a vast number of plants, was a true 
lover of them and made it a rule to employ the simplest terms that 
he could find for his specific names; the terms which he used as 
generic names were, in a great number of cases, those which had 
already been employed for one or other plant of the group before 
he introduced his nomenclature, so that he was not always responsi- 
ble for these generic names, but even here, when he was at liberty 
to choose, he selected the most euphonic or the most familiar name. 
Thus the generic name Viola was not originally used by Linnaeus, 
but was selected by him from several applied to the same group; 
then, to specify a particular form of Viola he gave the specific 
name tricolor, an easy name to remember and one in euphony with 
the generic term. Through all the vast lists of these specific names 
given by this great man the character of simplicity will be observed 
and it will be noticed also that these simple terms are repeated 
over and over. » This systematic effort at simplicity, it is unfor- 
tunately necessary to add, has not always been imitated by botanists 
of lesser fame. 
