THE BINOMIAL SYSTEM OF LINNAEUS 511 



like it, a descriptive name similar to the following was used : Gramen 

 Xerampelino, Miliacea, praetenius ramosaque sparsa panicula, siva 

 Xerampelino cogener, arvense, aestivum. Carolus Linnaeus was 

 an assistant to the Professor of Botany in the University of 

 Upsala, Sweden. While cataloguing plants, he had come across 

 many descriptions such as the one just given. He realized that 

 such a name was too long and inconvenient and he initiated a num- 

 ber of reforms in the existing scheme of classification. He gave 

 the name " Pea bulbosa " to this plant. In his system which he 

 called the binomial nomenclature, two names sufficed to dis- 

 tinguish this organism from all others. One .name designates 

 the genus of the plant or animal, the other the species. All 

 organisms that have similar characters are grouped together and 

 this group is called a genus. The name given them is the generic 

 name. The genus is subdivided into groups with varying char- 

 acters called a species and the name given is the specific name. 

 The generic name for all the members of the cat tribe is Felis. The 

 genus Felis is subdivided into the species such as leo (lion), par- 

 dus (leopard), domestica (house cat). Therefore, the lion is 

 known as Felis leo, the leopard as Felis pardus, and the house 

 cat as Felis domestica. The initial letters of the name of the 

 genus is always capitalized and that of the specific name is written 

 with a small letter. 



What a task Linnaeus undertook ! He published his most impor- 

 tant work, Systema Naturae, in twelve editions and like all scien- 

 tists of his time, wrote the descriptions in Latin. This practice 

 continued until very recently. Exchanges of scientific papers on 

 classifications could be made throughout the world in a common 

 language. Recently, scientists have employed their mother tongue 

 for the description of any new creature. When the discovery is an 

 important one, the paper is translated by those who need the data. 

 Linnaeus died in 1778, but his work lives on and, with a few modi- 

 fications, is still used to-day. 



