204 PITTONIA. 



sweet-clover, he might fail to make the unconscious generic 

 distinction which I justly credit him with having made under 

 the assumed condition of familiarity with several kinds ; hut 

 even if he confuse tlie genera and make his sweet-clover a 

 mere species of Clover, Linnneus did the same. 



In oar northerly latitudes— the region of the birches— I 

 believe that the uneducated have as correct and as definite a 

 conception of the respective limits of Beiula and Alnus as 

 the botanists have. They can tell a Birch from an Alder 

 anywhere ; they recognized the several species of the former, 

 and assigned them their English specific names so long before 

 the era of our botanical nomenclature that Linnseus, translat- 

 ing those vernacular specific appellations into Latin, adopted 

 them for scientific use.' And quite such has been the origin 

 of a vast number of our scientific names of trees and useful 

 or highly curious plants. Now it may be that the woodsman 

 ■when asked how he distinguishes between an Alder and a 

 Birch, gives answer that the former grow along the margins 

 of brooks, the latter on high and dry ground ; which will be 

 putting habitat in the place of a generic character : or he 

 may name as distinctive the diverse properties of each, and 

 the uses for which they are available, and this is establishing 

 a genus apoa sensible qualities. The drawing of such dis- 

 tinctions, where they could perceive no better ones, exposed 

 the primitive botanists to the criticism that they were 

 "unscientific." But the truth seems to be that genera are more 

 easily recognized than defined ; and this holds with respect 

 to botanist as well as woodsman; though the former has 

 invented a technology and a terminology by the help of which 

 he is able to frame definitions, and usually to draw limit- 

 ations, which are more satisfactory. But still it remains that, 

 while many genera are so natural that the illiterate recog- 

 nize and name them, after a fashion of their own, others are 

 confused by twos and threes and half-dozens by the pro- 

 fessional botanist because he fails to find what his "science" 

 calls for, a technical character for each. 



But he confounded the birches and alders as one genus 



I 



