346 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



names previously in use. But though this remedy 

 was found to be complete and satisfactory, and is 

 now universally adopted in every branch of natural 

 history, it was not one of the reforms which Lin- 

 naeus at first proposed. Perhaps he did not at first 

 see its full value ; or, if he did, we may suppose 

 that it required more self-confidence than he pos- 

 sessed, to set himself to introduce and establish ten 

 thousand new names in the botanical world. Ac- 

 cordingly, the first attempts of Linnaeus at the 

 improvement of the nomenclature of botany were, 

 the proposal of fixed and careful rules for the gene- 

 ric name, and for the descriptive phrase. Thus, in 

 his Critica Botanica, he gives many precepts con- 

 cerning the selection of the names of genera, in- 

 tended to secure convenience or elegance. For 

 instance, that they are to be single words 5 ; he 

 substitutes atropa for bella donna, and leontodon for 

 dens leonis ; that they are not to depend upon the 

 name of another genus 6 , as acriviola, agrimonoi- 

 des ; that they are not 7 to be " sesquipedalia ;" and, 

 says he, any word is sesquipedalian to me, which 

 has more than twelve letters, as kalophyllodendron, 

 for which he substitutes calophyllon. Though some 

 of these rules may seem pedantic, there is no doubt 

 that, taken altogether, they tend exceedingly, like 

 the labours of purists in other languages, to exclude 

 extravagance, caprice, and barbarism in botanical 

 speech. 



5 Phil. Bot. 224. e Ib. 228, 229. 7 Ib 252. 



