BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 371 



be simplified by omitting " or names " and " or combination 

 of names," on the ground that the name of a plant is one, that 

 it has a name not names, its name being the generic followed 

 by the specific appellation. Ranunculus bulbosus is one 

 name of two words. Our veteran botanist, Bentham, has in- 

 sisted upon this ; and it has a bearing upon the mooted ques- 

 tion of mode of citation of authority. 



The governing principle for the citation of authorship, etc., 

 is well declared by De Candolle : " Never make an author say 

 that which he does not say." It is difficult to go wrong when 

 this principle is kept in mind, and when it is also understood 

 that the appended name of an author, or its abbreviation, 

 makes no part of the name of the plant, but is only the initial 

 portion of its bibliography. Those who take a different view 

 seem to have fallen into it by failing to distinguish strictly 

 between name and history, and especially by mixing the his- 

 tory of a preceding with the statement of an actual name. 

 A single example may illustrate this. When we write " Mathi- 

 ola tristisy Brown," we give the name of a certain kind of Stock 

 and the original authority for it ; and we may, when needful, 

 complete the citation by adding the name of the book, with 

 the volume and page, where it was first published. If, with 

 some, we wi*ite " Mathiola tristis, Linn.," we make an untrue 

 statement. Linnaeus had a wholly different genus Mathiola, 

 and no 3f. tristis. If we add " sp.," and somewhere explain 

 its import to be that the latter half of the name was given by 

 Linnaeus, the other half remains unaccounted for. And we 

 have still to seek in the synonymy for the name of the genus 

 under which Linnaeus knew the plant, and also for that of the 

 author who transferred it to Mathiola. If, with others, we 

 write " Mathiola tristis, Linn. ( Cheiranthus'),^'' or " 3Iathiola 

 tristis, Linn. (^suh-Cheirantho},^' our longer phrase still wants 



stated without somewhat detailed exposition, why not in a local or con- 

 densed botanical book write simply Onagracece ? The proper exposition is 

 in place in a Genera Plantarum ; and it would have been better if Ben- 

 tham and Hooker had critically attended to this, instead of referring 

 merely to the preceding work of Endlicher. It would have added some- 

 what, yet not very much, to their great labor. 



