334 BOTANICAL NAMES AND AUTHORITIES. 



was published), and for names since that date, the 

 botanists at any botanical department of a museum or 

 botanic gardens, where the plant could be seen, would 

 recognise the abbreviated names. It is true that in 

 some cases where the abbreviations have been reduced 

 to initials like L. & DC. and H.B., & K., librarians 

 might not know to whom the letters referred. The 

 recognised custom of using the first syllable of the 

 name and the next letter, or in cases where this rule 

 would leave a difficulty owing to the next letter after 

 the first syllable being the same, the last letter or two 

 last letters of the name should be used ; thus, Decaisne 

 could be distinguished from Decandolle by writing it 

 Decne. In some cases there have been father, 

 son, and even grandson of the same name, and in 

 such cases it has been customary to write f. (filius) 

 after the name for the son, thus, in the case of 

 Hooker and Linnaeus it would be Hook. f. & Linn. f. ; 

 but it is much more helpful to the student to give the 

 initials of the Christian name in each case, thus, C. A. 

 Agardh and J. G. Agardh or W. J. Hooker and J. D. 

 Hooker, as the student cannot intuitively know which 

 is the father and which is the son. In the case of 

 Linnaeus, father and son, the son having the same 

 Christian name, but ennobled, the abbreviation could 

 be written Linn. C. von, the point to be aimed at 

 being to eliminate as far as possible all sources of error 

 and to save the time of the student of botany by making 

 reference to books as simple and easy as possible. This 

 has been done to an enormous extent by the Index 

 Kewensis, by giving a reference to the work in which 

 any plant has been first described, under the names of 

 the plants, alphabetically arranged, so that by means 

 of Pritzel's Thesaurus Literature Botanica and the Index 

 Kewensis it is possible to refer to the original and 

 accepted description of any known plant. 



