290 SPECIFIC NAMES. 



from America, americanus. The use of a plant is 

 often commodiously expressed in its specific name, as 

 Brassica oleracea, Papaver somniferum, Inocarpus 

 edulis ; so is likewise its time of flowering, as Primula 

 verts, Leucojum vernum, testivum and autumnale^ and 

 Helleborus hyemalis. 



When a plant has been erroneously made a distinct 

 genus, the name so applied to it may be retained for 

 a specific appellation, as Lathr&a Phdypcea, and 

 Bartsia Gymnandra ; which may also be practised 

 when a plant has been celebrated, either in botanical, 

 medical, or any other history, by a particular name, 

 as Origanum Dictamnus, Artemisia Dracunculus, 

 Laurus Cinnamomum, Selinum Carvifolia, Carica 

 Papaya. In either case the specific name stands as a 

 substantive, retaining its own gender and termination, 

 and must begin with a capital letter ; which last cir- 

 cumstance should be observed if a species be called 

 after any botanist who has more particularly illustrated 

 it, as Cortusa Matthioli and C. Gmelini, Duranta 

 Plumieriiy and Mutisii. The latter genus suggests an 

 improvement in such kind of names. The genitive case 

 is rightly used for the person who founded the genus, 

 D. Plumieriij D. Mutisiana might serve to commemo- 

 rate the finder of a species, while D. Ellisia implies the 

 plant which bears it to have been once called Ellisia. 



There is another sort of specific names in the geni- 

 tive case, which are to me absolutely intolerable, though 

 contrived by Linnaeus in his latter days These are of 



