HO \V PLANTS ARE NAMED. 159 



with the generic name, Viola, in gender, and 

 it must be Latin or Latinized. A proper 

 name decided upon, as perhaps Viola verna, 

 " spring violet," the botanist publishes it 

 with the scientific description of the plant, 

 and thereafter the name is written with the 

 author's name attached, to show who pub- 

 lished the species. Thus we write, Viola 

 blanda, Willd., and V. rotundifolia, Michx., 

 the names of the authors being abbrevi- 

 ated. 



This binomial, " two-name " system of 

 naming natural objects is an exceedingly 

 beautiful and convenient one. The names 

 of the nearly 8,000 genera of flowering plants 

 must all be different from each other, but 

 the same specific name may be used over and 

 over again, only changing it in each case to 

 suit the gender of the generic name. Thus 

 we might use the word verna, meaning 

 spring, for a plant in each of the 8,000 gen- 

 era. There could be a spring violet, a spring 

 rose, a spring chrysanthemum, or a spring 

 bramble, — Viola verna, Rosa verna. Chrys- 

 anthemum vernum, Rubus vernus. One 

 hundred thousand species of flowering plants 

 are easily and readily named by this method, 

 and their names can be borne in the mem- 



