NOMENCLATURE 255 



Kcderia cristata (L.) Pers., indicates that Persoon was 

 the author of the accepted combination and that Linnaeus 

 was the author of the name cristata under some other 

 genus, in this case under Aira. Persoon transferred the 

 species to Koeleria. If a variety has been raised to a 

 species, or the reverse, the parentheses are used to indi- 

 cate the original author. If the parentheses are not used, 

 as is the case in most of the older works, the name retained 

 is the author of the combination. Among zoologists the 

 custom often prevails of retaining only the original author 

 in parantheses, omitting the author of the combination. 

 The use of the parentheses is often referred to as double 

 citation. 



CAPITALIZATION 



279. As previously stated, the generic name always 

 begins with a capital letter. The specific or varietal name 

 begins with a small letter unless the word is a proper 

 name. Many botanists decapitalize all specific names 

 regardless of derivation. The latter system conduces to 

 uniformity but violates the rules of the Latin language, 

 which is the language of botanical nomenclature. Con- 

 forming to the first system, specific names are capitalized 

 if they are proper nouns. Such nouns may be derived 

 from a personal name, or they may be proper names such 

 as are mentioned under nouns in apposition. Some authors 

 capitalize geographic adjectives, as Virginiensis and Caro- 

 linianus, but this is not required by Latin usage. 



Decapitalization of proper names may lead to ambiguity. The 

 specific name Leonis would indicate that the species was named for 

 a man by the name of Leon, but if the name is decapitalized, leonis, 

 it may mean merely, of the lion. More serious is the decapitalization 

 of a name like Millefolium {Achillea Millefolium). This is an old 



