NAMES NOMENCLATURE 



NAMES NOMENCLATURE 2103 



however, still retained a few of the inconvenient gen- 

 eric names which consisted of two words, as Corona 

 imperalis, Centaurium minus and Centaurium majus, 

 Ferrum equinum. These disappeared forever with the 

 publication of Linnaeus' "Genera Plantarum" in 1737, 

 which contained, like Tournefort's work, a complete 

 enumeration of the known genera, but much clearer 

 and more concisely characterized and arranged accord- 

 ing to the sexual system of which Linnaeus had pub- 

 lished an outline two years before. About the same 

 time, in 1736 and 1737, Linnaeus laid down his prin- 

 ciples of botanical nomenclature in his "Fundamenta 

 Botanica" and "Critica Botanica," but it was not until 

 1753 that he took the last step in his reform of botanical 

 nomenclature and proposed for each known species a 

 nomen triviale, that is a name which consisted of a 

 single word and was intended to replace for general 

 use and reference the cumbersome descriptive phrases 

 previously used. 



This simplified and convenient nomenclature found 

 the speedy approval of nearly all botanists and was 

 soon universally adopted. Very few botanical works 

 of importance were published after that time which did 

 not accept the binomial nomenclature; the most notable 

 are perhaps Patrick Browne's "Civil and Natural His- 

 tory of Jamaica" (1756), and the sixth edition of Philip 

 Miller's "Gardeners' Dictionary" (1759), but in the 

 seventh edition (1768) Miller adopted the binomial 

 nomenclature. Although little or no objection was 

 raised against the nomenclatorial system itself, many 

 attempts were made to change specific and also generic 

 names for various reasons; for example, Salisbury in 

 his "Prodromus Stirpium in Horto ad Chapel AUerton 

 Vigentium" (1796) conceived the idea that all specific 

 names ought to be descriptive adjectives and therefore 

 changed names like Lonicera Caprifolium to L. suavis, 

 L. Periclymenum to L. odora, Rhamnus Frangula to 

 R. nemoralis, and others. Likewise many other bota- 

 nists felt themselves at liberty to change names they did 

 not like or did not consider quite correct, and the law 

 of priority had little weight up to the first quarter of 

 last century. The general tendency was then, and in 

 fact has been for a much longer time, to give preference 

 to names published in important and easily accessible 

 works and to follow the lead of men considered to be 

 great authorities. Fortunately, nearly all great sys- 

 tematic botanists, about the middle of last century, as 

 the De Candolles, Endlicher, Martius, Hooker, Ben- 

 tham, Asa Gray, Baillon, were more or less guided by 

 the law of priority, but with the increasing botanical 

 activity about that time the necessity was felt to have 

 definite and uniform rules for the ever-increasing num- 

 ber of botanical workers. Therefore Alphonse De Can- 

 dolle was charged to prepare for the International 

 Botanical Congress at Paris in 1867 a code embodying 

 the rules to be followed in botanical nomenclature. The 

 code which was presented to the Congress and adopted 

 contained as the fundamental principle the strict 

 observation of the law of priority. It ruled that in 

 transferring a species from one genus to another the 

 oldest specific name had to be preserved; also that in 

 changing a variety to a species or vice versa the oldest 

 name must be retained. Although most continental 

 botanists followed more or less this Paris Code, or as 

 it is sometimes called Candpllean Code, the British 

 botanists under the leadership of Kew preferred the 

 first combination under the correct genus, the so-called 

 Kew rule. The Paris Code, however, even by its pro- 

 fessed adherents, was hardly ever applied consistently 

 in all its consequences. This was pointed out forcibly 

 by Otto Kuntze in his "Revisio Generum," of which the 

 first part appeared in 1891; in this work he essayed a 

 rigid application of the Paris Code, resulting in thous- 

 ands of new combinations under hundreds of unfamiliar 

 generic names. This avalanche of new names raised a 

 storm of protest in many quarters. For years Kuntze 



fought for the strict application of the Paris Code of 

 which he proposed several amendments, and for the 

 acknowledgement of his new names, but his uncom- 

 promising and unyielding attitude and the often 

 intemperate language used against those in opposition 

 made him many enemies, and he therefore did not 

 accomplish so much as he might have effected, if he 

 had tried more persuasive methods; but nevertheless 

 he set the reform under way. 



In 1892 the Botanical Club of the American Asso- 

 ciation for the Advancement of Science at the Rochester 

 meeting drew up a short code of eight articles, some- 

 what amended at the Madison (Wisconsin) meeting the 

 following year, which embodied about the same rules 

 as were contained in the more amplified Philadelphia 

 Code of 1905. In the following year, the International 

 Botanical Congress at Genoa added a few but rather 

 unimportant amendments to the Paris Code. In 1897, 

 the botanists of the Berlin Botanical Museum agreed 

 on a set of rules mainly for the guidance of the col- 

 laborators of Engler & Prantl's "Naturliche Pflanzen- 

 familien." The chief feature of these rules was a pro- 

 vision against replacing well-known generic names by 

 old half-forgotten names which had failed to become 

 established within fifty years after their publication, 

 thereby allowing the principle of usage to predominate 

 in certain cases over the principle of priority. 



In 1900, at the International Botanical Congress at 

 Paris, a commission was formed to make the necessary 



2435. Willdenow's specimen of Rubus inermis, in Berlin. 



arrangements for a representative meeting of botanists 

 at the time of the Congress at Vienna in 1905 to come 

 to some agreement on the fundamental rules of nomen- 

 clature. Botanists of the whole world were invited to 

 make propositions and amendments to the Paris Code, 

 which had been decided upon as the base of the new 

 code. Propositions were freely offered, and all were 

 incorporated in a publication which was sent to lead- 



