Ixii INTRODUCTION. 



botanist to be the touchstone of the whole 

 enquh^y. How far can plants be iden- 

 tified with the old English names in these 

 Lists, and what lines of reasoning are there 

 ■which may guide us in this direction ? 



It has been seen above that for long 

 ages the chief task of Botany was the 

 identification of plants with their names. 

 If we held Dioscoridcs to be the founder of 

 Botany, this was partly because of his Sy- 

 nonyms, which were an apparatus for iden- 

 tification. When Botany severed itself 

 from Medicine and became conscious of 

 a distinct vocation, this arose out of a 

 great and sustained effort after identi- 

 fication. The fame of G. Bauhin is that 

 by shaping forth a System he added new 

 means of identification. The glory of 

 Linnaeus is that he organised a System 

 which ensured identification. So that 

 the whole botanical birth-pang from 

 Dioscoridcs to Linnaeus was in its first 

 intention directed to this most necessary 

 of all acquirements, the power of identi- 

 fication. 



But there arc two sorts of Identification, 



