BOTANICAL NOMENCLATURE. 877 



for Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth. We are not sure that 

 De Candolle would favor the latter. 



A series of remarks is made upon articles 29-66, taken 

 together, — relating to names which are to be rejected or 

 modified, and those which are to be maintained notwith- 

 standing certain faults. As already mentioned, the tendency 

 among working naturalists is to preserve names in spite of 

 faults ; while a few linguistic reformers, such especially as 

 M. Saint-Leger, propose changes which would affect 733 re- 

 cognized names of species in Europe alone, and ten or twelve 

 thousand in the vegetable kingdom at large, and " this after 

 all the endeavors of botanists ^or the past half century to 

 establish the law of priority and to have more stability of 

 names. ScKjlttaria sagittifolia and Psamma arenaria must 

 be changed, forsooth, because they are pleonasms ; all substan- 

 tive specific names, because a great majority of specific names 

 are adjectives, and many others because they are not suffi- 

 ciently classical." For instance, Dianthus he would change 

 to Diosanthus, Mentha to Minthe, Ilydrocotyle brevipes to //. 

 brevipedata^ Cactus to Cactos, Arum to Aron, and so on. 

 De Candolle adds, that Cicero was not so particular in Latin- 

 izing Greek words, as witness " barbarus," " machina," " em- 

 porium." As to Pirus, our author insists that even if Pyrus is 

 not Latin, it is the botanical name of the genus as adopted by 

 Linnaeus (from Tournefort and from all the herbalists, and 

 it is old enouffh to be entered as an alternative form in the 

 dictionaries), and so is to be preserved under the law of pri- 

 ority. There is little danger that the reform of Saint-Leger 

 will prevail. There is some danger that the reaction will so 

 stiffen the rule of priority as to forbid the correction of ob- 

 vious mistakes. See, for instance, the form in which article 

 60 is now recast by De Candolle : " A generic name should 

 subsist just as it was made, although a purely typographical 

 error may be corrected. The termination of a Latin specific 

 name may be changed to bring it into accordance with its 

 generic name." From this it would seem that a slip of the 

 pen and a mistaken orthography of a man's name may not 

 be corrected. We trust that, when the change would not 



