PLANT NAMES 19 



Ultra. There is no accepted law as to names of 

 varieties. But botanists heed them not.* 



Linnaeus was careful so far as possible to preserve 

 the old generic names. But there were cases in 

 which he thought that a class of plants previously 

 regarded as a genus ought to be included under 

 another genus. He then used its former name as a 

 specific name. For example, Milfoil he placed under 

 the genus Achillea, and instead of coining a specific 

 name for it he called it Achillea Millefolium. Such 

 cases are exceptions to the rule that the specific 

 name is an adjective, and to mark the fact that 

 Millefolium is a substantive it is spelt with a capital, 

 and retains its original termination. The meadow 

 flower that used to be called Bistorta he put under 

 the Polygonums. Its proper name, therefore, is 

 not P. bistortum, but P. Bistorta. 



Linnaeus, as I have said, laid down thirty-one 

 rules for the naming of plants, of which Lindley 

 remarks that they were undoubtedly excellent in 

 many respects, and that to them we must attribute 

 much of the perfection of natural history since his 

 time. But he adds that adherence to some of them 

 is impossible, and that these have fallen wholly into 

 disuse. There is, however, difference of opinion as to 

 which rules should be observed and which discarded. 



* Some botanists do recognize botanical varieties as dis- 

 tinguished from horticultural. But such a distinction is 

 dif&cult to establish, and it would seem to contravene 

 Linnaeus' binomial rule, which is that two, and only two, 

 names should be botanically applicable to each plant. 



