TERMINOLOGY AND NOMENCLATURE. 51 



"The formation* of an exact and extensive descriptive 

 language for botany has been executed with a degree of 

 skill and felicity, which, before it was attained, could hardly 

 have been dreamt of as attainable. Every part of a plant 

 has been named ; and the form of every part, even the most 

 minute, has had a large assemblage of descriptive terms ap- 

 propriated to it, by means of which the botanist can convey 

 and receive knowledge of form and structure, as exactly as 

 if each minute part were presented to him vastly magnified. 



This acquisition was part of the Linnsean reform 



' Tournefort,' says Decandolle, 'appears to have been the first 

 who really perceived the utility of fixing the sense of terms 

 in such a way as always to employ the same word in the same 

 sense, and always to express the same idea by the same words ; 

 but it was Linna3us who really created and fixed this botanical 

 language, and this is his fairest claim to glory, for by this 

 fixation of language he has shed clearness and precision over 

 all parts of the science/ 



" It is not necessary here to give any detailed account of the 

 terms of botany. The fundamental ones have been gra- 

 dually introduced, as the parts of plants were more carefully 

 and minutely examined. Thus the flower was necessarily 

 distinguished into the calyx, the corolla, the stamens, and the 

 pistils; the sections of the corolla were termed petals by 

 Columna ; those of the calyx were called sepals by Necker. 

 Sometimes terms of greater generality were devised ; as pe- 

 rianth, to include the calyx and corolla, whether one or both 

 of these were present ; pericarp, for the part enclosing the 

 grain, of whatever kind it be, fruit, nut, pod, &c. And it 

 may easily be imagined, that descriptive terms may, by defi- 

 nition and combination, become very numerous and distinct. 

 Thus leaves may be called pinnatifid, pinnatipartite, pinnati- 

 sect, pinnatilobate, palmatifid, palmatipartite, &c., and each of 

 these words designates different combinations of the modes and 

 extent of the divisions of the leaf with the divisions of its outline. 



* Hist. Sc. Id. ii. 111113. 



