64 CAROLUS LINN&US 



strictly a Linnsean in this regard; so that 

 here, as at many another important point 

 in the most recent botany, the genius of the 

 great Linnaeus rules and directs. 



Fellow members of the Botanical Society 

 of Washington, if this had been a meeting of 

 our own, and not that of two other learned 

 societies in joint session with us, I should 

 have preferred, as I said at the beginning, 

 to discuss some one of Linnseus's greater 

 books; taking it as a text from which to set 

 forth his deeds; his many benefactions to our 

 science. To some it will doubtless appear 

 anomalous that here not so much as the 

 briefest abstract of his various reforms in 

 nomenclature should be given ; especially since, 

 in the minds of so many botanists of recent 

 decades, those reforms are thought to be the 

 most important service that Linnaeus rendered 

 to botany. Several of the most commonly 

 received opinions about him as nomenclator 

 are absolutely groundless. Several principles 

 of nomenclature now almost everywhere ap- 

 proved were under his severest reprehension. 

 Inasmuch as I myself was the prime mover in 

 the direction of what has now come to be 

 well known abroad as the Neo-American 

 school of nomenclature, I may be permitted 



